Please Come Soon

Life and death can be so surreal sometimes. My grandpa is in the hospital, and it looks like he probably won't make it. I live with my grandparents, and their lives are quite active for people in their early 70s. Three days ago, my grandpa was fine. He asked me if I needed more "tuition" for my clogging lessons, and I told him he needed to come to our next nursing home performance. Then Wednesday morning, he coughed pretty hard, and my grandma noticed afterwords that something about him was different. She asked me to come talk to him, and I did, and it was obvious something was wrong. His speech was slurred, and his eyes were dull, but his sense of humor was as sharp as ever. He was cracking jokes in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Since then it's been a nightmare roller-coaster. Strokes are cruel. No one can know what is going on behind the "sleeping" appearance. Clues come in forms like thumbs-up and holding up two fingers in response to questions, but other than that, who's to know? Pictures of his brain show there's not much hope of change--the bleeding is the size of a baseball, and in an area that is inoperable--and has already done its irreversible damage. True, other parts of the brain can learn to compensate, but can it learn fast enough to keep him breathing, to keep his heart beating...to keep him alive?

Conversation today turned suddenly from the long road of rehab to quality of life decisions and daring to look at a possible future without a very beloved patriarch. There is so much going on in all our minds and between us that is impossible and too exhausting to describe. This is the dark side of life, and yet the light of faith glows brightest in this darkness, and I have seen it in those in my family who are in deepest pain. There are prayers for a miracle, for "letting this cup pass," but there are prayers of "not our will, but Yours be done." An anointing service this evening especially brought both of these prayers together. And now we wait.

We all wait for you, Jesus. Please come soon.

"For yet a little while, and He who is coming will come and not tarry." Hebrews 10:37