A Special Dedication & Prayer for Baby's Great Grandma Bea.

Some may know that my granny celebrated her 88th birthday on January 15th. She has been suffering with undiagnosed dementia onset for several years now and was recently diagnosed after she was hospitalized for pneumonia. She was transferred to a rehabilitation center to increase her health and strength. There she had a right brain stroke in the middle cerebral artery affecting the left side of her body. This stroke was a thrombosis...aka a clot and did not hemorrhage. However, it has affected her ability greatly in the following ways:

• to eat and swallow properly
• visual field for reaching across her body and tracking items past midline to the left
• inability to move her left arm and leg freely...overall has poor motor planning
• can only follow 1 step commands
• able to produce 3-4 word sentences much like a toddler
• has slow cognitive processing
• difficulty breathing and talking on exhaled air due to her diaphram being impaired.
• bodily functions and organs are shutting down and causing edema which is a fancy word for swelling.

She has an advanced directive not to have feeding tubes and due to the above listed problems along with a decreased motivation to eat secondary to the swallowing disorder...she is now considered FTT-failure to thrive.

So our family has decided to allow medications to keep her comfortable without pain until she drifts off to be with the Lord Our Maker.

I personally have not gotten to talk to her now that she is no longer responsive to simple conversations. Due to my current condition, I am not allowed to travel to see her or to attend her memorial when she passes. This is very hard for me since she has been my rock and my inspiration from a very early age. She is and was such an important part of my growing up that I would even visit her in the summers as a teenager with my own license to drive...she lived 3 1/2 hours away but I made the trip often. I would take my spring break time in college and graduate school to go visit her. I also took my first job out of graduate school in Arkansas to be close to her. I stopped by her house everyday, unless I was sick. My last visit home (OK) was at Thanksgiving. Granny has been living with mom since the Summer of '05...so it was a special time and I was thrilled to add another great grandchild to her list! Below is a poem I wrote for her upon passing, inspired by God on 2/11/06.

IN HONOR OF YOU Blessed is the one of purity so sweet, Christ smiles on her behalf. Devoted to her beliefs, family and friends, She of notable value…grew and aged with grace. Wisdom imparted to all who knew her tender nature, To ask her she would humbly deny such a thing. A Christ-like life was what she lived, Remember and treasure all that you have…As she would freely give of herself. Removed beyond her earthly body, Some would say untimely. But…How can we say we’re empty, Can there be such a thought? Fulfillment in her life and amazed by her memory, We are all blessed to have our life paths cross. Struggles are for those left behind, We tenderly cry in selfishness to hold her. Weeping no more but weeping just the same. Amazing is our Abba Father who joyfully called her home. We should always embrace the parting of this truly remarkable lady… For she has seen the face of God and by his grace…can now rest in Heaven’s Realm. There are many names she was honored to have, but only one she will keep. Daughter in Christ. TO GOD BE THE GLORY FOREVER AND EVER…. AMEN. I love you always a bushel and a peck…oodles and gobs. Shae Lynn. 2/06

I also wanted to share a prayer she taught me as a young girl. We would sing it together but I loved to hear her sing in a soft spoken and slow melodic voice that would somehow help me drift sweetly into a slumber...from our mouths to Gods ears:

BEDTIME PRAYER WITH GRANNY Jesus may I ever be kind and loving just like thee. May I ever…do and say, all that pleases you today. Teach me thy will to obey, in my work and in my play. And if I should ever stray please forgive me when I pray. Then if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. In Jesus name…Amen.

Please keep my family and granny in your prayers.

shae