Please Have Thoughts (or Prayers) of Peace and Love for my Grandmother

My Beppe is sick. Actually, sick doesn't begin to cover it. She had a heart valve replacement operation a few weeks ago, and she is still in the hospital. Fluid continues to pile up around her heart, but her blood is so thin that they are having trouble keeping it drained off. She is on a ventilator and can no longer talk on the telephone, and my Grandfather is reluctant to hold the phone up to her ear, or maybe it won't reach. She is basically in congestive heart failure, and she wants to go home, to be in familiar surroundings when she passes, but right now, as of this evening, that is not looking possible.

Owen (my brother) and I desperately want to fly to Phoenix, just to see her one last time, to hold her hand, and to tell her we love her. But our mom (Beppe is her mom) seems to think this might be a bad idea, that we might get in the way, or make things more complicated. Or perhaps Beppe doesn't want us to see her, and therefore remember her like that. We know we need to respect their (mom, Beppe, Papa) wishes, but this is all very hard to grasp, process, accept or otherwise deal with.

I Love my grandmother. I always have. Even when I was 7 and out of spite and grumpiness from having to go home from a week spent visiting with them on their boat in Hawaii, and I said "I hate you" I didn't mean it and instantly regretted it. But I am not sure that Beppe has ever truly forgiven me for that childish indescretion. I hope that she has, but I am not positive. She is an amazing woman, who has done and lived through and seen so much in her life. I know that 82 years is a full life, but it still to me doesn't feel like her time. I know that she has made peace with what is to come, but I am having much difficulty with this. Even though I am practically 30, I feel like a powerless little kid. I just want to crawl under the covers and cry until I fall asleep, and then wake up in the morning and have the sun be shinning and every thing be better. I know that when her time comes, she will be at peace - but I am pretty sure that I will not be for a long while.

I am frequently fond of saying that I try not to regret, just do things differently the next time around. But in this case, I do regret not calling more. Not writing more. Heck, not emailing more. I regret not sending pictures of the kids more often, but am so thankful that my mother nagged me into the realization that I needed to send pictures and drawings of the kids to Beppe in the hospital. I wish I had visited more. I wish that when we did visit, that I had spent more time talking with her, hearing her stories, learning more about her and her youth. But that was a topic that she never has really enjoyed - she was born in the mid twenties and grew up in Nazi occupied Holland. What few stories I could get out of her always amazed me. I just wish I had grown up sooner and been ready to hear them all when she was willing to talk. I regret not being more attentive. I regret not being more affectionate. I regret not being more "there".

If you are reading this, please pray for her comfort, whether it be her sudden improvement so that she can go home (which I selfishly want, but I know is unrealistic), or the more likely comfort of no longer having the pain of slow heart failure. And please pray for my grandfather, who has spent the past 60+years being a part of a 2, and I am sure who cannot remember how to fly solo. And for my mother and uncle Falco, that they find and remember all the joy that they have known in their lives with their mother, and that they find peace as her time with us draws to a close. And also, if you have room, for my brother and I, and our cousin Erik, and Dakota and Jason, the 3 grandchildren and tw0 great grandchildren of Beppe. I am not sure if it is selfish to ask for prayers for myself, but I know that I am going to need them, because right now I am in need of the strength and maturity to deal with this situation rationally.

And if you are not the praying type, please just think positive thoughts. We need some positive energy sent out into the world right now.

Thank you.