Helpless

I cried this morning. 

I know...shocker, right?  I do cry...maybe not often, but I do.  And I did this morning.  Why?  Let me take you back a little while.

 On Saturday, November 5 I was house sitting in Huntington, and I got a phone call at 5:30 in the morning from my mother, telling me that my grandfather had fallen, and they were waiting on the ambulance to take him to the hospital.  So I jumped in the car and took off up to Winfield.  Grandpa had fallen in the bathroom and had hit is head and various other parts of his body.  I met them at the hospital so I never did get to see the bathroom, but I'm told it looked like Vietnam had happened in there.  When grandpa got to the hospital they scanned him and discovered he had a bleed in his brain.

Then the insanity began.  He lost his speech at one point due to seizures, he ended up with an infection in his elbow and in his blood stream and he had pneumonia.  He finally improved enough that he was released to Health South rehab, and then he improved enough there that he finally got to come on on December 1st.  However, he could not come home alone.  So we have been taking turns staying with him and we have someone who sits with him during the day.

Flash forward to this morning.  It was my turn to stay the night with grandpa.  He got up to use the restroom about 3:30 this morning, and called out to me that he was going to use the urinal beside his bed.  Well, a few minutes later I hear a commotion and he called out that he had fallen.  Now, he wasn't badly hurt, just a few bumps and bruises.  Didn't hit his head, didn't break anything.  I patched him up, got him up and got him back into bed.  Through all that, I held it together.  I mean, I knew it was going to happen.  It was just a matter of time.  He is so unsteady on his feet, and it is inevitable that he will fall again. 

So I went back into the bedroom and called my mother to let her know what happened so she could stop by and check him before she went to work.  I even held it together while I was on the phone with her.  Then I hung up and broke down.  I couldn't help it.  I felt so...helpless. 

I know it wasn't my fault that he fell.  And I know it's not my fault that he is in the condition that he is in.  And I know other people in my family feel this way.  We just feel helpless.  We want to make him better, and we can't.  All we can do is keep him safe. 

But we don't that don't we?  We beat ourselves up when we see people who we love hurt because there's nothing we can do about it.  We want to save them from pain and hurt, either physically or mentally.  But we can't. 

It says in Romans 8:28--"In all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose."  We are all called by God in one way or another.  And everything that happens in our lives has a bright spot.  Yes, it's bad that grandpa is ill, but what is good about it is that we have the opportunity to spend time with him.  I only saw him twice a year for seven years, and now I have the chance to help him, to get to know him, to be there for him.  That is the silver lining in this cloud. 

May we look for the silver linings in our clouds today, and not feel so....Helpless.

T