Love, deep and long

Last November, I sat in the corner of the hospital room watching my grandpa stroke my grandma’s cheek, softly, shakily combing her hair back with his hand. Grandma suffered the first of what has now been many little strokes. And thankfully, mom and I happened to be visiting when it happened. But what came to mind as I sat there watching my grandparents was the photograph of my grandma on their honeymoon. Stunning, absolutely stunning, in her swimsuit. The first time I saw that picture, my grandparents became real people, not just my grandparents. They became lovers. They became 20-somethings. New parents having their first baby--my dad. People who had struggled through the very things I’ve struggled with.

Grandma’s lower lip quivered and my grandpa bravely smiled, patted her hand, and the doctor came in…

The hospital released my grandma a day later, so we took her back to the care facility where she was staying. Grandma clutched the rocky road ice cream that grandpa had stopped to get for her at the grocery store. It was her favorite, so he wanted to make sure she had some when she returned to the facility—where she did not want to go. She just wanted to go home, she said. She wanted to go home and eat her ice cream. She just wanted to go home. Why wouldn’t we just take her home?! I so desperately wanted to fulfill her wishes. I wanted her to go home with grandpa and eat her ice cream! I wanted her to make beef stroganoff for dinner. I wanted her to roll her eyes and say "Oh, Bob" when my grandpa would get sentimental and tell a story about them. I wanted to go home too. Instead, holding back tears, I tried to explain why we weren’t heading home.

After we got her situated back in her room, I plopped down on a chair while grandma dozed off, ice cream completely forgotten about in the hubbub of getting her back into her room. Mom and grandpa went to talk to nurses. I was left to beeping of machines and grandma’s uneven breathing. On the armoire in the room was a note alerting the nurses not to take my grandma’s clothes because “patient’s family” did them. In the armoire was a plastic bag containing some of my grandma’s clothes and underwear. It then registered that grandpa was taking grandma's things home on a regular basis, washing them, and bringing them back, even though they could do it at the facility. Even though he battles his own physical disabilities.

A few months later I returned to visit with my dad. Grandma had declined more. Grandpa, dad, and me went to visit grandma, and as we walked down the hallway to her door, we could hear her crying out for help. Grandpa tried to quicken his pace with his walker. Once to her, she clutched my grandpa’s arm and cried that she had had more nightmares. Grandpa stroked her face, calmed her down. Said he was there now. Not to worry.

But what about when he’s not there?! When she’s not there?! Their love is so so deep and so so long. But with that comes pain, loss, deep and long. I lose my breath sometimes looking at B, wanting the longevity and depth of grandma and grandpa’s love, but so afraid, too...

Grandma is headed to her real home soon. And if you ask grandpa, he’ll smile with watery eyes, and tell you that he and his bride--that stunning woman in her swimsuit on their honeymoon--have had an amazing life. What shines through is not the pain, but the love.

We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
--1 Corinthians 13:12-13