My most perfectly awesome Grandmother celebrated her 100th birthday a month ago.  It was a wonderful day!  How often does a woman celebrate her 100th birthday with all of her 6 children there to help her blow out her candles?  A room full of faces that were the direct result of her.  It was pretty amazing really. 

After a fall earlier in the week, my grandmother was admitted to the hospital.  I had been told that she had become very confused and had taken a significant turn for the worse.  Today I went to visit.  I tried to prepare myself mentally for the visit since I had heard that she looked pretty beat up and weak, but when I walked into her room at the hospital today I looked at a woman laying in a hospital bed that was merely a fragile frame of the woman I have forever frozen in time in my head.

I said hello.  She remained motionless looking at the opposite wall.

Again, I said, "Hi, Gramma!" this time louder.

Still nothing.

My parents and I quietly whispered to one another about how she was that morning, if she had eaten, if she was aware of what was going on around her.  Then, I hear her whispering to no one in particular.  She is inviting a friend over to her room because she wants to talk.  She is smiling and silently laughing.  I quietly listen as she reaches for imaginary items to show her invisible friend and I couldn't help but smile.   Here we were, nervous and concerned about her health, and she was entertaining a guest, sharing a joke, and making small talk with him. 

I asked her what her friend's name was.  She stopped talking, looked over at me out of the corner of her eye, almost as if she was annoyed that I had interrupted, and after about 20 seconds she said, "You'll find out."

The whole visit, she seemed unaware of visitors and nursing staff in and out of the room.  She was actively engaged with her friend and planning some sort of dinner party because she was talking about the seating arrangement.  The only interraction she innitiated was when she was hoping someone would help her reach imaginary things but even that communication was essentially non verbal. 

An hour or so later she was asking for someone to push on her so that she could reach something that we couldn't see.  When I would ask her if there was something I could get for her, she kept talking about a door.  She explained that she couldn't reach the door and just needed someone to push her so she could get to it to open it.

It wasn't until I was retelling that interaction to an aunt that we both stopped to wonder if that door wasn't just an imaginary door and if she was really talking about a doorway to something very different.  Then, I wondered about her friend.  Maybe Jesus was keeping her company and making her feel happy and safe.  It really was a wonderful image I had created in my head.  Then I had to leave.

I leaned in very close and said to her very loud, "Gramma.  I have to go now.  I love you like crazy!"

She looked right back at me and said, "I love you too."

I walked to my car and smiled the whole way.  It was really perfect considering the circumstances.

Gavin took this picture about a year ago.

Tonight I called my mother, who has been spending most of her time at the hospital, to see if she wanted me to get her anything from the store.  In the background, I hear my grandmother's voice ask, "Who is that?"

My mom tells her it is me and then I hear Grandma's voice again, "I want to talk to her."

I can tell that I am now on speaker phone and when I say hello, she starts talking to me about the ice cream she ate and how she is feeling good.

"Gramma!  Do me a favor and take care of yourself!  And keep eating that ice cream!  That stuff must be really good for you!" I say with my mouth half hanging open.  She was speaking in sentences and coherently!

"I will!" she says.  "Do you want to know why?"

"Why Gramma?" I say smiling but still with my mouth hanging open.

"Because you told me to."

It was like she was a whole new woman.  She was back.  Grandma is back.  She is such a fighter!  Kinda like a little miracle, if you ask me. 

Please pray that Jesus stays right next to her, making her smile when we cannot.