savoring the grief

A year ago, I spent the evening in an ICU room at the hospital. My grandpa was dying. The odd thing is that I had been planning to go visit him at the hospital that day after I got off work. I went home, went for a run, and had been planning to go visit him. My parents had left that morning after visiting my grandpa to go to Minnesota for the birth of my niece, and they had said that he looked good. 

When I got in from my run, I had a missed call from my mom, and she told me that if I wanted to say goodbye to Grandpa I needed to go to the hospital right away. After I cried and cried, I drove the 45 minutes to the hospital as I cried some more. 

Once at the hospital I saw my grandpa. Except it wasn't my grandpa. My grandpa was a strong, healthy, vibrant man. Not this weak, helpless man who couldn't breathe on his own. He didn't even recognize me. He just said: "I want to go home." And all I could say as I started crying yet again was, "You are going home, grandpa, you are." 

The moment that will remain in my mind, though, was after we had been there for a little while, and all of a sudden my grandpa saw me. He recognized me, just for a moment. 

That night, a year ago was full of grief and joy and love and sorrow and expectation and travail. And as much as I would like to miss out on the grief in life, that's not an abundant life. Abundant life holds joy and grief. It's all a part of learning to savor our lives.

*To read all the posts in this write 31 days series, click on the #write31days label at the bottom of this post. 

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