Surprisingly, I’m not very sore from yesterday’s workout.

I did indeed weigh-in this morning and the results pleased me:  205.5

Down 5.5 lbs. for the first week.  Not bad at all considering I made a few bad food choices throughout the week and only began exercising yesterday.

I’m hoping for another good loss next week since I’ll have a full seven days of working out under my belt.  I need to take my measurements as well so I have something besides pounds by which to measure my success.

On another note.  My grandmother passed away at 4:00am this morning.  She has been in kidney failure for over two years.  The doctors gave her weeks to live…two years ago.  She was a tough fighter.  She and my ‘Papa’ were married on New Year’s Eve, 55 years ago.  Papa is still alive and in a nursing home near my parents.  My Papa hasn’t been able to speak since having a major stroke two weeks before my wedding, eight years ago.  My heart breaks as I think of my parents delivering this devastating news to him this afternoon.  He’ll have no way to communicate what he’s feeling; except tears.  Throughout the last eight years, my grandma took good care of my Papa.  Even when they were separated into two different facilities in order to meet each of their medical needs, his eyes would light up when she would come to visit him.

When the stroke took his speech, he lost the ability to say anything clear enough to understand.  He would try to talk to you, but you simply couldn’t make out the words.

There was one exception;  every single time my Papa saw my Grandma, he would grab her hand, or put his hand on her leg and say,

“My Baby”

Nothing else came out right except for that one phrase, for that one special person.

Grandma took a turn for the worse on Tuesday.  Selfishly, I prayed she would make it through the night so I could see her on Wednesday and say my good-bye’s.  She did it.  She pulled through Tuesday night.  She was in agonal breathing, her blood pressure was around 60/30, and her chest was slowly filling with fluid.  She no longer had the ability to suck anything through a straw and if you put drops of fluid or medicine in her mouth with a spoon, she would choke because she was too weak to cough.

What I saw when I walked through the door of her room was not my grandma as I remember her.  She had but a few frail hairs left on her head.  She weighed a sickly 75 lbs.  She looked like a skeleton dressed in a thin layer of skin.  When we walked into her room, she looked me right in the eyes and whispered, “You scared me.”  I smiled and apologized.  I told her how much I loved her how glad I was that I was able to come and see her.  She never said another word.  She was fading fast.  I doubted she would make it through another night.

My brother was coming from North Carolina to see her on Thursday, praying she’d still be there.  Once again, she surprised us all and made it to Thursday.  My brother and dad went to see her in the nursing home on Thursday.  My dad decided to have her moved to Hospice House Thursday afternoon.  There, she would have one on one care and a large room with a pull-out sofa so someone could stay with her if they wanted to.  Once she arrived at Hospice House, her chest began filling with more fluid and her blood pressure continued to fall.  Within a few hours, she took her final breath.  Now, she is rejoicing in heaven with a new body, no diabetes, a head full of beautiful hair, and brand new kidneys.

I rejoice with you Grandma.

My grandma will be buried in Arkansas, where she and my Papa have cemetery plots, side by side.   My parents looked at plane tickets yesterday and couldn’t find a single flight for less than $800 per person.  Not knowing when she’d pass, they didn’t purchase their tickets.  This morning, my mom went online to the very same website and found a flight that wasn’t even listed yesterday.  There were two tickets remaining, side by side, round trip, for $180 per person.  Isn’t God so good?

Please pray for my parents and my Papa over the next several days.  Papa isn’t healthy enough to fly, so he’ll be alone while my parents go to Arkansas to bury my grandma.  My brother and I are unable to travel to Arkansas, so Josh and I have decided to take the boys and go see my brother and his wife in North Carolina tomorrow.

Have a blessed weekend.

~Shirleen’s granddaughter.

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