My grandmother is the strongest person I’ve ever known. Maw-Maw is a very kind woman, yet stern when she needs to be and never ever tells anything but the truth… sometimes so truthful as to embarrass someone sitting at the same restaurant table or cause my sister and me to giggle at her boldness. She’s such a beautiful woman and someone that I have always looked up to.

She’s having trouble with her memory, brought on by the anesthetic she had about a year ago during surgery. Since she went into the hospital, they’ve taken her off everything except her heart medicine and plan on keeping her there for about 20 days for observation. The hope is that her condition may improve once the medication is out of her system. This is a very optimistic view for me to take, and there may not be very much hope, but I’m just hoping to eventually understand what has happened.

I saw her in a hospital bed for the first time on Saturday. She’s been gradually getting worse mentally. As I sat with her and did my best to catch her up on what I’d done since Christmas, she reached for my hand and just smiled. She did try to ask me questions, but it was very hard for her to finish a sentence… she would get out everything but the last word, and since English grammar usually puts the noun at the end of a question, it was very hard to figure out what she was asking.

I held it together pretty well in her room. I’ve never had a close relative in the hospital before; it’s always been some other grandparent or relative that I only knew of that would be in that position, and it would always be just a quick update from my parents over the phone. This was so different. The strongest person I have ever known, the matriarch of our family, my sweet grandmother is in pain.

Dad stopped by close to lunchtime to take me and Grant out for a bite to eat. I kissed Maw-Maw’s forehead and told her I loved her. Once I left the hospital room, my will broke and I couldn’t hold in my feelings any longer. I felt like someone had ripped out my heart. Tears gushed from my eyes and I couldn’t get myself to quit. I made a very weak attempt to hide my face from my dad, but I was able to sneak off to the bathroom while Grant started up a conversation with him.