A Prayer For Granny

 I never thought that when I wrote my blog, The Last Flight Home, on January 31, that we would find ourselves at the bedside of our grandmother after a massive stroke on Feb 7th. The past few weeks have been a jumble of mixed emotions as we have made end-of-life decisions, moved her to hospice care and packed her life into boxes. We’ve experienced many emotions, but regret is not one of them. We have loved her well.

Yesterday I sat by her bedside, chatting about the day, as she lay still, with her eyes closed. As I stood up to say goodbye, she reached out and gripped my hand very tightly, a silent plea for me to stay longer and not leave her. I couldn’t help wondering, Granny, how can you have so much strength left?

I couldn’t help having doubts about not doing everything in my power to extend the length of her life, yet she left specific instructions in her Living Will about feeding tubes and end-of-life care. Knowing that we are doing what she would want, makes the decision easier, but it does not make it easy. My heart is in a tug-of-war.

Most of the time Granny is asleep, comfortable and in no pain. It’s getting harder and harder to wake her, but she responds most often to my voice. This has puzzled me, but I realize for the past 4 ½ years (since we moved her to Arizona), I have visited her once or twice each week, usually waking her when I walked in the door. Even though her body is shutting down, her heart’s memory is conditioned to wake to the sound of my voice.

This thought comforts me, but my prayer is that Granny would listen to a different voice. In John 10:27-29, Jesus says, “My sheep hear My voice; and I know them and they follow Me, and I give eternal life to them and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand.”

My prayer for Granny is this: that she will not cling so tightly to this life; that she would grip the hand of the One who will never let her go; that her heart’s memory will respond to the voice of the One who is calling her to wake up from this temporal slumber and drawing her to a place of no more death, no pain and no more tears.

That is my prayer.