Final Gifts

I am reading a book my aunt lent me, Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs and Communications of the Dying. It provides insight on the dying process to help family and caretakers make sense of it. My grandma is going to pass away very soon, and it's been a unique experience, even for me, living 350 miles away, to be on the sidelines as my aunts and family have cared for her the past 1.5 years of decline. She is 94 and has lived a robust life (complaint-free, imagine that).

It's fascinating that my grandma chooses to live, despite occupying a failing body. It gives me understanding of how powerful the mind is. I am grateful I had the opportunity to say good bye to her 2 wks ago when she still had the energy to joke.

My aunt left a bookmark in the Final Gifts book with this timely quote. A bible verse, actually:

Do not remember the former things, Nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; Now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness And rivers in the desert.

Isaiah 43: 18-19, NKJV

A wise woman (LAHP) told me that sometimes we need to go to the 'desert' to deal with life... desert being a relative term. Indeed.