Pain

One of mine and Sam's favorite shows is Grey's Anatomy. Yes, we know it is soap-opera-ish, but we love it nonetheless. In a recent episode, a little girl came to the hospital because she had badly hurt herself. She was banged and bruised, but claimed that she was a super-hero because she was unable to feel any pain. She would try to prove this to people by asking them to punch her as hard as they could in the stomach. When kids would take her up on this, she felt nothing. But after an X-ray, it became apparent that she had major internal damage. The show ended by saying that pain always serves a purpose.

It lets us know we are alive.

To not feel pain may actually do more harm than good.

My sweet old grandmother is in a lot of pain right now. It saddens my family deeply. My mom has been helping her sister care for my grandma in Mississippi for the past week now. Today she is driving home in hopes of getting some rest so that she may return to again very soon.

My grandma has always been a strong woman. She is small and fraile, yet she has lived alone for almost 2 decades now since my grandfather died. She is cared for mainly by my aunt and uncle who live near her. But though most women her age are living in nursing homes, she still dressed herself, bathed herself, prepared her own meals, and even drove herself to the beauty shop once a week...until she fell a couple of weeks ago.

She got up in the middle of the night, lost her balance, and fell. My aunt and uncle drove her to the hospital and found that no internal damage had been done. She was banged and bruised, but was not critically injured.

Now, weeks later, she's in a lot of pain. She can no longer care for herself and someone has to be with her at all times.

My mom says it's hard to watch.

No doubt.

So how do you watch someone you love suffer? How do you look on the positive side of this pain?

I guess for now, at least this pain means that she's alive.