Thanks Mike!

The last post was for a school assignment and so I will not count that as my post for today.  I suppose I could as it gives some indication as to what my day included.  I actually think that may be the last assignment for my online computer class and for that I am truly grateful.  And now, let me switch gears to another assignment. Last night I made mention of a debate I am involved with for one of my classes.  I asked Mike to share some thoughts about his time with Grandma Vi before she passed. I was truly touched by the thoughts he recorded. It is beautiful.  I want to keep record of this experience and this lesson in charity and humility and so I share it here and express my gratitude to Mike for his words. 

How caring provides for growth and learning

I didn't do much for Grandma Vi before her death.  She seemed to have everything in order and a routine that she followed.  I really only lived with her for about 3 weeks before she went back into the hospital.  I was in Salt Lake for the 2002 Olympics and had been working the graveyard shift, so my schedule was limited in interacting with her.  I was usually falling asleep about the time she was getting things going upstairs.  I would talk with her a bit before I went to work at night and would help out with things that she needed to have done.  I didn't have a very strong relationship with her prior to this, I think I was even reluctant to ask her to live there, but it was good to help.  One morning when I had come home, I heard her fall upstairs.  I went up to see that she had fallen on the way to the bathroom.  She didn't really seem to know who I was, but I helped her up and took her back to her bed.  She threw up in a way I can only describe as cartoonish - it was a solid tube of greenish looking puke that just came out of her (it was due to the drugs she took for her cancer treatment, that's why it was green).  I was always reluctant to help other people, thinking an expert should be the go to person.  I was a bit surprised I was able to jump in and help ease her suffering, even just for a little bit.  I thought I was nauseated by other people throwing up, but I held the trash can for her when she puked, and I even helped clean her up.  When she fell she had cut her arm - I cleaned that up and bandaged her up.  I was able to put her back to bed and waited until she fell back asleep.  I proceeded to clean up her bathroom from the blood, take care of the trash, and make sure she was okay.  Because she fell back asleep, I thought she was okay.  I would usually wake up some time in the afternoon to the sound of hear her walking around or watching TV.  That afternoon she hadn't, so where I would usually go back to sleep, I noticed she wasn't up, so I got out of bed and went to check on her.  She was much worse than before, so I called my aunt to come check on her.  The ambulance came and she died a short time later.   

I don't know that I'm a great example of what to do in times like that.  I did learn that my love for my grandmother was such that I could help her in ways that I didn't think I would be able to - ways that I would never want to.  I realized that my love for my grandmother was greater than the notions I had been harboring up to that point in my life.  I had always felt like she didn't really like me that much, but in those moments it didn't matter and my love for her grew so much from that experience.  Helping the helpless taught me a lot more about myself then it did about my grandmother.  The idea not to burden others with the troubles that come from a person who is dying seems like we are actually taking away the opportunity for people to grow, not in skills of helping or aiding, but in their capacity to love others; they are bypassing the opportunity for their personal growth.  It really was an experience like the Grinch, when his heart grew.  I learned so much more about me in those moments that I feel like I'd be willing to do it all over again.