Old People

Today is my great-grandmother's 95th birthday, and it would have been my great-grandfather's 98th. Driving down to Eugene to visit for an hour and a half with other relatives and family friends, I don't think anything could compare to what I saw when I walked into the room in which my great-grandma greeted (well, sort of) guests. She sat in the corner of the room in her wheel chair. Her hair line had receded since the last time I had seen her. Many of her teeth had fallen out. As I smiled and said hello and happy birthday and gave as much of a hug as I could without feeling like I was going to crush her now-frail body, she either didn't recognize me at all or straight didn't know that she had a red-headed great-grandson named Brandon. I would bank on the former being the more true of the two. Anyway, aside from a similar goodbye, that was the extent of the contact I had with her all afternoon.

It absolutely tore me up to see my great-grandma. I thought of all the conversations I wanted to have with her and my great-grandfather when he was still around. They had lived through two world wars, the "Cold War," Watergate, Vietnam, the protests of the 50s, 60s and 70s. They had heard the news that Neil Armstrong had walked on the moon. And I didn't care enough to ask them about such things when I felt I could at least ask a question of them without wearing them out.

Each time I see Great-grandma, I think it will be the last time I say goodbye. She's given 95 years of her life to the God of the universe. And she's confined in a body that is no longer functioning as it's meant to.

Visiting Great- grandma reminds me to live life to it's fullest, to not be afraid to take risks, because one day I may find myself in an assisted living facility with nothing to do but sit, pray, and reflect on all of the risks I should have taken.

It also reminds me how much I really hope I don't live to be so old I have to have someone help me go to the bathroom.