Will we laugh about it later?

I wanted to ask my Grandpa about that last night as I sat by his hospital bedside for 4 hours, and held his hand and tried to keep him calm.  My poor grandpa had a stroke last week and he has been in the hospital since, and he started off with purely medical problems, which lead to "non-medical" issues.  Like the drugs they gave him to calm him down making him hallucinate. And my poor grandpa kept trying to get up and check on the dog, find the ring someone lost, turn off the gas line, and make sure that glass bottle on the shelf, you know next to his drills didn't fall down and break. You see the combination (or at least that's what we are hoping) of lack of sleep and narcotics left him a delusional mess who didn't sleep for days.  He'd quiet down then within two minutes start hallucinating again.  Never a break, never a rest.

And my grandpa is a really smart guy, who can fix or build anything.  And did I mention at 88 he probably knows more about computers than I do? Yeah, he really does. So to see him hallucinating and talking to people who aren't there, and trying to fix non-existent things, and eating food from an empty hand,  was heart wrenching. And I hope to see him make a speedy recovery at the nursing home so that he can come home soon.  Then I hope to sit and tell him about his hallucinations and hear his signature grandpa laugh, with his signature Grandpa wit making some kind of wise cracks about it all.

So God please heal him so we can sit and laugh about it all...instead of having to tell him what reality actually is.

I'm like a bird

I have a little girl who is almost 9, which is crazy, when did I blink and have a 9 year old? Wasn't she just a tiny little toddler? This thought is rather pervasive, and often these days as she spreads her wings more and more.


My almost 9 year old is a smart, loving, witty little girl.  Everything is black or white, right or wrong, up or down, dramatic or dramatic. (Yeah I was purposefully redundant there, she really has a flare for the dramatic.) She cracks me up all the time with the sharpness with which she figures things out and finds the humor in them.  She frustrates me to no end by how often I have to remind her that I am the mother, she is the big sister. She has warm heartfelt talks with me and tries so hard to understand why the world works like it does, why people have to chose evil things over Godly things, and even why she chooses evil over Godly things sometimes.  She is, as her teacher said, "well liked and respected by her peers". She is a friend through and through and gives people chance after chance if she feels like maybe they actually meant sorry this time...but man that girl has a memory like a steel trap and hurt feelings linger for a long time. Though she has such a quick wit her flare for the dramatic and deep thinking brain leave her serious quite often.

She amazes me most days, and this week has been filled with snapshots I hope to capture deep and bold in my mind as no camera could ever do these moments justice, because she has been letting go of her overly analytical side and spreading her wings and being a free spirited kid.

Santa, IE Brian, searched and searched for just the right bike to wow her with for Christmas.  It had to be girly enough to satisfy her feminine nature, but be a really good bike that she could be rough with, and it had to have foot brakes, because well coordination and motor skills ARE NOT her strong points. He found it, and her eyes and screams on Christmas morning did not disappoint.  Poor Brian had to let Santa take the credit but the look of pure joy on her face was reward enough for him. And little did we know that watching her ride it would be even more of a reward.

You see when she rides she gets a sparkle in her eye, one a camera could not capture.  It's like taking a picture of the Grand Canyon; beautiful but a pale comparison of the real thing. She smiles, except for when she is smirking and she imagines what kind of big jumps she can take or curves she can navigate.  She turns into a shooting star, bright and glorious. She has never tired of riding before Brian or I had to call it quits. Rainy days now make her sad because it means no bike.

I have never seen her shine as brightly as when she is riding her bike; well that was until yesterday.  We took a family day and went to Knotts.  She is now tall enough to go on most rides and daddy has been waiting a long 9 years for that moment.  You should have seen her! She soared on the swings with her hands straight out, feet out in front smiling and gleaming. She rode Pony express 6 times, 2 of them by herself.  Yeah by herself...by request.  She rode Montezuma's Revenge 2 times, Boomerang once, Jaguar 2 times, again 1 by herself, by request. She tried to go on Silver Bullet and the Accelerator with Brian but she was too short for those.  And every time she went on a coaster she has that sparkly gleam in her eye.  I wish I could build a roller coaster in my backyard just to see that face again.  My usually very cautious girl lost all inhibition, faced her fear and enjoyed herself yesterday with pure abandon. I wish I could have slowed down time and watch her smile like that for days.

She is growing and changing and expanding her knowledge and experience in the world.  This makes me sad most days, but honestly the past few weeks have been so amazing with her joyous bike riding and roller coaster adventures that all I can say is: God is good, and growing children are too.