message to some people I love (D,T&C)

I feel as though I have been gone to a foreign land for a long time. The truth is, I have been here--but at the hospital for most of my waking hours the past few days.

My Grams is in again... we don't know what is wrong. She has had a very high fever for several days. She is incoherent. For the first time Grampo is beginning to talk about losing her.

My days have been entirely focused on my grandmother's body: how much has she peed?What is her temperature? Are her toes cramping again? Is her skin dry? Is her neck comfortable? Is she thirsty? I hover around her busying myself doing things to make myself feel better. I am helpless, so I do things to make me feel as though I am doing something. I rub her old but still strong body with lotion. I stroke her forehead and talk to her, pray for her, lean in to try to comprehend what she is babbling to us, spoon-feed her soup and jello and strawberry milk. I have no idea if it is helping. She struggles at the final line.

I have come home to see that some people I love are also struggling. Not their bodies, for they are young and healthy. But in their hearts... at their very depth.

And though I know they hurt and question and feel pain, I am full of hope and joy for them.

These people I love are turning their feelings around to look at them from every angle. They have their hearts in the palm of their hand, held up before God, and they are saying: "Here it is. What do you see?"

When we are all old, and there is nothing left of us but our very souls, we will look back on these days of growth and know that was how we became who we finally are. And when we stand around one another's death beds, we will remember how our Father loved us and grew us.

We will say, "Remember how she taught us so much about what we were afraid to know?"

And, "I grew so much that summer of camp under his mentoring, loving, open heart."

And, "He said things that were true, and made me think about my own heart and its contents."

This is the stuff of life. The real stuff. And we are in it.