Here, Scared

Grandma’s at the hos­pi­tal. She woke up this morn­ing with pain all over her body, but more severe­ly in her low­er abdomen. They quick­ly drove her to the doc­tor, and it turns out there’s been a block­age in her colon. This after­noon they per­formed a pro­ce­dure to expand the colon, and it went through with­out any com­pli­ca­tions. She’s rest­ing at the hos­pi­tal for the night, and my fam­i­ly is tak­ing shifts to stay with her.

I’ve been stuck at home all day. Everyone else has been at the hos­pi­tal and they decid­ed to leave me behind. I’m on immune sup­press­ing med­ica­tions and the hos­pi­tal is full of germs; get­ting sick myself is the last thing I need, espe­cial­ly when it means that I would­n’t be able to see my grand­ma, as her immune sys­tem is even low­er than mine right now. I would only be in the way if I was there any­way.

I’m scared. I’ve nev­er dealt with any kind of sick­ness like this before. The only peo­ple in my fam­i­ly who have passed away were always far away in Hong Kong.

And now I’m here.

6 comments

  1. My thoughts are with you Jeff.

  2. It can be scary when it hap­pens right next to you. But the expe­ri­ence will change you, you’ll become more “mel­low”, and you’ll feel old­er and more mature. I’m not sure if that’s “good” or “bad”, I guess that’s just an inevitable part of life.

    I wish your grand­ma well, and there is as lit­tle pain as pos­si­ble. You know, she has accom­plished a lot in her life.

    • I think that look­ing at it from a Taoist point of view, any­thing that’s inevitable is good. After all, there’s noth­ing we can do to pre­vent the inevitable, so it must be accept­ed. :)

  3. You think you’re ready for mor­tal­i­ty, but it’s sur­pris­ing­ly more fright­en­ing when you have it in front of you. That’s because you con­nect it with your­self.

    Remember who she real­ly is inside, not the dif­fi­cul­ties she’s expe­ri­enc­ing. Just love her. I do believe it is felt, even remote­ly.

    • It’s also sur­pris­ing­ly more fright­en­ing when it’s some­one else; my own mor­tal­i­ty I can han­dle. With so many peo­ple sur­round­ing her, she must cer­tain­ly be aware of how loved she is.

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