As I mentioned a few entries back, my grandmother is very ill. While she isn't dealing with immediate medical concerns like she was last week, we are at the "make her comfortable" stage of things. In the past few weeks, I've come to admire her bravery so much. I know everybody goes through that whole "contemplate your mortality" phase at some point so I'm not going to dwell on whatever thoughts I'm having, except to say this: it is outside of my comprehension to see how well she is handling herself through everything. I can't say I've seen her cry a single time, even when she's talking about the most serious aspects of her situation.
I spend a lot of time at my parent's house right now so I can see her and hopefully make things a little easier on them. One of the times that I was sitting in with her and just talking about random things (how her day was going and how mine was going, things like that), the conversation shifted to quilting. I learned to quilt a few weeks back and immediately started on a larger project with my gramma that I hope to finish soon so she can see it.
After a few minutes of random quilt talk, she started explaining very carefully about what should be done with certain quilts. Some are for our family to keep, others are to be given to various people who were important to her and still others are to be sent away to be finished by a friend of hers. I didn't realize until she'd told me about three or four quilts that she was leaving me instructions. Its not something I'm used to or that I expected, but already I know more about quilting than my parents (its easy to know more than nothing about a subject) so I think she feels more comfortable telling me what to tell people. Especially with the quilts that still need to be finished - I do understand enough to describe what she wants.
I'm going to change the subject for a second here. Have y'all ever watched game shows? There's one called "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?". They ask contestants questions at grade school levels and pit them against 5th graders to see who'll win the money. The first time I watched it, I marveled at the abject stupidity of some of the contestants. Really? You didn't know Saturn was called the Ringed Planet? Its surrounded by huge, visible rings. It wasn't until I watched "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" that I figured out what was really going on.
That just happened.
I think I just have to keep reminding myself that elephants are smaller than the moon and I'll be ok.
See, when someone is in an important or stressful situation, it makes it really easy to forget otherwise simple pieces of information. If, for example, you're being watched by millions of viewers in the comfort of their own homes, you may come to the belief that an elephant is bigger than the moon. Its a case of nerves. And speaking of nerves, simple things like take this blanket and mail it to this guy become really daunting. I don't know if its that there's no way to correct it if I mess up (who else would even know the right thing to tell me to correct it) or if it just feels like an important job... but I definitely don't want to get something wrong.
I think I just have to keep reminding myself that elephants are smaller than the moon and I'll be ok.
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