Home, A Little Groggy, after a 300 dollar picture

This weekend was a flash! We celebrated Max's birthday at White Rock Lake...Happy Birthday, little guy! I got dubbed with a new nickname, too...Aunt Jojo. I like it. Then, it was home for a rest, off to the nursery at our church, and then to bed to get ready for a quick drive to Amarillo to see my granny, who is in a nursing home suffering from Alzheimers. She actually wasn't expected to live through a chest cold in May, she even confided in her son that the angels were at her bedside. They must have brought with them God's healing, because she suffered a miraculous healing, and is healthy except for her mind in a nursing facility in Amarillo. She has three sons, Don and Joe live there, and my dad, her youngest, who lives in Granbury. She knew him for the first time in four years, but was wary of me and the kids. Last May, when the doctors had given her five days at the most to live, I was sad because I didn't have a picture of her with my kids. I LOVED granny when I was little. I spent many nights next to her and her soft skin on her pull out sofa watching videos with her. She took my cousin Cathie and I when no one would allow us together. (We were wild, wild wild...another post another time). She had a beauty shop out behind her house where she fixed hair, old school style. Anyway, I was sad. so I rode with my parents pulling a camper (they are headed out to Pecos for some camping and fly fishing) to Amarillo on Sunday. 8 hours later, we are there, headed to the nursing home where of course she didn't know me. I got one picture of her with Jack and Molly, which I will post because it is so funny. In the picture, she is looking at Molly about to push her hand off her Granny arms, where Molly was touching her. She told Molly not to touch her again! And, Jack is being pushed by Uncle Joe to look like he isn't scared of his mind of this old, old lady in a wheel chair. It was kind of dark humor, which I think gets you through the sad times like that. I think God offers us these moments to laugh instead of cry, instead of bogging down in saddness, to grasp onto the sometimes insanity of it all. Another bitter sweet part was watching her sons prompt her and work with her, to retrieve the little bits of memory that are tangled insider her mind. They ask basic questions over and over, and some part of granny's mind still holds onto her past enough to answer the rote questions. I am not sure she is entirely in the same world we are in, but I am also uncertain where she is. Perhaps she is in an inbetween state, not quite with us in the present, not quite sure of the past, but existing in a world where she can remember her favorite dessert is ice cream, and that she is tired enough to want to sleep every moment of the day away. I am thankful for the opportunity to see her, to touch her paper thin skin again, and to pay homage to a great woman that I've loved. I'll put up the pic when Mike gets home today. This morning, we were up at 5 a.m. to catch the early flight out of the Amarillo Regional Airport on Southwest Airlines. This was an opportunity for more dark humor. Our car was searched on the way in, and Jack's asthma machine trigged a bomb alert and a quick scolding for me from the screeners. Then, the flight was quick and Mike met us at Love Field. All in all, 300 dollars for the tickets to get a picture that I will treasure for ever, because I love granny and I was glad to see her with my kids, whom I also love greatly. I wanted to have a photo of the lineage she is partially responsible for, because she is my father's mother, she and her mother Estelle, and Estelle's mother, whom I met at her 105th birthday when I was a child. I am thankful that God has blessed me with family, even if capturing it in a photo is a little bittersweet. I am a little groggy this morning, but now it is outside so Molly Ann can play and release some pent up energy from the busy, busy weekend.