Watching my grandmother over the last few weeks, I have really learned about the impact your husband or wife can have on you. Of course I know marriage is a large part of life for many, but for my grandmother, I believe it was her livelihood. She cooked, cleaned, basically catered to my grandfather for 57 years. While I never really understood why she did everything for him, I think I understand now. She loved to take care of him. She loved to make him breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day, do all his laundry, stand on her head to make him happy. The last 2 months of my grandfather's life were months filled with moments of sheer confusion as he showed signs of dementia. The symptoms came on so suddenly and very aggressively. Hard to believe he was completely coherent on Christmas '08, and Easter '09 he is no longer with us. Anyway, back to my grandma. I have learned she took great delight in him and meeting every need and desire. As I watched her with him in his last day and hours, she could not let go. We all told her she had to tell him "it was ok to go", but she kept saying she could not do it. "I am nothing without you" she told him repetitively. We all knew this to not be true, but I truly believe my grandmother believed what she was saying. Even to have him laying there in a comatose state would have given her "hope".
I cannot help but think about this situation as an analogy. We can live without many things and people in this world, but we are nothing without the Lord. What reason can we give for living without Christ? To live a good life? To do good deeds? To just be a good person? This cannot be. We are all sinful, and without a savior, we are all on the path to hell with no way out. No way to save ourselves. Nothing to live for.
My grandparents are Greek and my grandfather's name was John, "Yanni" in Greek. In the early hours of the day he passed away, standing around his bedside, waiting for his body to completely shut down, for him to take his last breath on earth, for his heart to stop beating, my grandmother lay her head on his chest and cried "my Yanni, my Yanni!"
My prayer is I would always lay my head at the Lord's feet and cry "My Jesus, My Jesus, I am nothing without You!"
4 comments:
Wow.
Great post.
I need to remind myself of this all the time. I can be SO self-centered much of the time. But my purpose for BEING is to represent Him to the world and bring Him glory. It's not about me at all! In fact, your line is perfect...I am NOTHING without Him!
hi, I live 25miles/minutes North of Boston in Beverly . If there is anything we can do for Stellan please let us know. We could host some one. We live 1/2 mile from the train station which is as quick as driving into Boston. Does Mcmama like visitors who pray for Stellan or not at this time?
Pam Ebersole 978-236-8121
A truly beautiful post!!
What a beautiful love story. I'm such a sap for the romantic side of anything, but true, compassionate love for another human being is way beyond romance, it's just breathtaking to watch.
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