Reconnect

I had quite an exceptional weekend, and it’s not even half over.

As I mentioned before, my grandma had a bit of a medical emergency. Not only did she have extremely high blood pressure (in excess of 200/100), she suffered a minor stroke a few days after going to the emergency room.

Dad presumes that it was a switch in the medication that caused the stroke, but that’s mostly speculative. Either way, an already weakened person became even more frail; she’s finding it really hard to move anything on the left side of her body.

Over the course of two and a half weeks, though, she has drastically reduced her blood pressure (with the help of medication) and has been eating and drinking somewhat regularly. While some of her bodily functions have not returned to normal, she seems to be recovering remarkably well for someone her age.

Dad has been taking a lot of time off from work to stay at home and to take care of her; moving around is quite difficult and it’s not really safe to leave her unattended. Being at home this weekend has really shown me how much Dad has been doing for her, and words cannot describe how genuinely he loves her. It takes a lot of humility and character to do what he does and I truly commend him for it.

I will be sure to keep grandma in my prayers and it’d be awesome if you would do the same. I’ll be praying quite a bit for Dad, too, since he’s been under a great deal of stress and anxiety.

During lunch today, I asked Dad about the extended family. I sorta knew a little bit about who and where they are, but I never got a real sense of how everyone was related to everyone else. So we chatted about his brothers and their children and, for some, their children’s children. Dad promised me a family tree and I’m going to hold him to that!

I also asked him about how he met Mom. Some may find it surprising that I didn’t know until some 12 hours ago, but it’s true. It turns out that he met her through one of her relatives (a cousin, I think) while he was at York. It’s not a particularly interesting story but now I know.

Somewhat ironically, we would see her shortly thereafter. Today, the five of us were under the same roof for the first time in a very, very long time; Mom and Chris came by to visit grandma and to lend their support.

The outward sign of love and support went a long way… for the first time since the stroke, grandma smiled. (For those of you know don’t know about stroke victims, it takes some time before they are able to smile. Some don’t manage to do it again.) And it wasn’t a brief smile… it was a prolonged smile that she held as she thanked us profusely for being there. It was beautiful.

What was also beautiful was the opportunity to spend time with my entire family again. It had been so long. And while I wish the circumstances of this reunion of sorts were better, it could have been a lot worse, too. So, for that, I am very grateful.

It seems that my family is finally on the road to being closer. At least in part. I’m really eager to find out how things will unfold in the months ahead, but I anticipate that I’ll be making more of an effort to keep in touch. And it’s about freaking time.

And, in the coming months, there will be an addition to the family. Sort of. Dad told me about it on Friday and it’s not really public knowledge just yet so I’m going to have to refrain from posting the details for now. But stay tuned!

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