With a Heavy Heart

 It is with a very heavy heart that I write this post tonight.  I talked with my mom today and my Grandma Corbett (my mom's mom who turned 96 in May) is not doing well.  They think her kidneys are starting to fail.  My grandma is my only living grandparent and my kids only living great grandparent. I lost my Grandpa Corbett when I was almost 17 and my Grandpa and Grandma Schasre about 10 years ago.
One of the hardest parts of all of this is my mom has been taking care of Grandma for the last 12 years or more until the last two years when she had to go into assisted living because she needed more care than mom could do 24/7 and two weeks ago they believe Grandma had a slight stroke and was in rehab until last Monday when she had to go into full time care because she wasn't doing well in rehab.

Mom has had to make some major decisions concerning Grandma and her care the last two weeks-ones that you hope you don't have to ever make-the kind where the roles reverse and you become the parent and they become the child.

Mom called me today to tell me they think Grandma's kidneys are failing since she is not eating or drinking well since the stroke.  For quite a few years now Grandma has often said she doesn't know why God has not taken her.  When her friends have died, her son(my uncle) when my Grandpa and then her good friend Harold (he had lost his wife around the same time Grandma lost Grandpa and they became close friends-sort of boyfriend and girlfriend if you call it that at 80) and then when we almost lost my sister last year-every time Grandma would say "That should be me."  She is quite a lady-didn't read music but could play beautiful hymns by ear-I loved to hear her play the piano.  She could sew like no one I had ever seen too-she would make mom and Jackie and I matching outfits and whenever we went to her house she would cook like and army was coming over to eat-tons of food.  There was always cookies in the cookie jar and candy in the candy dish.  We played house in the basement with these colored plates and cups for hours and would eat bread with butter on it for a treat.  She and Grandpa loved clocks and lamps and had them all over their house (Grandpa loved to hear them all chime so he set them a second a part so you could hear each one chime! lol  Still whenever I hear a clock chime I think of him.)
Grandma was funny without knowing she was-once when Alyssa was just a baby they came to visit us in AR-we had and ice storm and it knocked out the power so we were sitting around in the dark talking and I asked her if she always wanted to have 4 kids.  To which she said "No-I only wanted 2. This made me crack up and say "Thanks Grandma"  cause mom was #4 and neither she or I would be here if she had had her way-lol!  So I said "Well, why did you have 4 then?"  to which she replied "Well honey, they didn't have birth control then."  The last few years her memory had started to fade and so when we got to see her last (a little over a year ago) she said to my husband "I am so glad to finally meet you" I am not sure who she thought she had met at my wedding but apparently it wasn't Mike. Of course she did call me Judy that day too instead of Jill. lol
She also asked my mom one day "Now are you my sister or my mother?"  To which my poor mom said "Neither-I am your daughter and I didn't know I looked that old!"  Poor Grandma-she had some really good days these last two years where she would be really with it and it made her a little sad because she would realize she was forgetting things.
I remember she gave me my first Children's Bible that I could read in 1976 and I still have that Bible with her handwriting in the front of it-we read daily devotionals to our kids in the morning from that Bible.
Every Christmas when we were little she and Grandpa would come to our home to be there for Christmas morning.  I remember them sitting on the sofa, her with rollers in her hair.  I loved them being there and it was sad when they got to old to come down on Christmas to stay with us.

I remember walks around the neighborhood and rocking on the glider on the front porch.  I still remember what the house looked like that she and Grandpa lived in and even the smell it had.

Please pray for my family right now-especially for my mom.  Grandma has lived a really long, full, healthy life till now, but it is never easy to let go of someone we love.   Mom told me she held her today and told her it was ok if she was ready to go home.  This has been a very hard, emotional day for mom.
Hard for me too because my home in NY is about 1800 miles away from my home in TX which means I can't be there to say "goodbye" if that time is soon and I won't make it home for a funeral either, it is too far to drive it and because Mike couldn't work and take care of all 4 kids and it costs a fortune to fly it, I can't do that either.
Though I know you will never read this Grandma-I love you with all my heart.  Thank you for all the wonderful memories-for being a wonderful Grandma.  In the sweet by and by we will meet on those beautiful shores!  When Jesus calls you home-I hope you have a wonderful reunion with Grandpa and Uncle Joe and Aunt Charlotte and my two sweet babies and Harold and many more people, and most of all meeting Jesus face to face and being whole and healthy again.  
You are a beautiful soul LaRue Corbett-thank you for all you have shown me in my life-I hope if I live to be 96 that I will have touched as many lives as you have.
All my love-
Your Loving Granddaughter ,

The last time I got to see Grandma (last summer)

Grandma with my family.

Grandma with Analeigh (Analeigh just ran in her room and ran over to hug her)

I love this photo.  94 years age difference.

4 generations-My girls, Me, Mom, Grandma