Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Wednesday's Walk - Through Loss, He created Life

Wednesday's Walk was designed by Lynnette Kraft. She tells her story of how she, along with her family, have found peace and happiness after loss and heartache. Lynnette has accepted God to take over her life and has allowed him to use her as His vessel.

For this Wednesday's Walk, I am taken back to a period on my life when loss lead to life.

My mother's father, Len spent the past few years as a resident of the Samaritan Health Center for senior care. After a couple trying years living at home with Alzheimer's Disease, it became clear that his needed care was beyond the control of my grandmother. And so after much deliberation, my grandma and mother moved him into the local nursing home. It quickly became a new regular routine to visit him several times a week and although the initial transition was difficult, grandpa soon got accustomed to the new living style.


There are plenty of aspects about Grandpa's life that I could talk about (his time with the Navy, his hobbies of drawing, painting, gardening, fishing, his love for football), but I will choose to keep that for another day. After all - the post has a deeper meaning that I would like to share.
As Alzheimer's Disease often works, Grandpa's health was on a steady decline for a few years while in the nursing home, but suddenly began to worsen. He stopped recognizing his family when we visited, he stopped conversing, and was confined to a wheelchair. However, he don't recall him every turning down a cookie if you placed it to his lips :).

Two floors above my grandpa - resided my Great Grandfather Lenor (I know that might be confusing). This was my grandmother's father - so she had her husband and father in the same facility. Great Grandpa Len, in his late 90s was in better health than his son in law who was in his late 70s. Great Grandpa was a tall guy! Mumbling his way through conversations and shuffling his feet to move along in his wheelchair. He always offered his guests candy orange slices coated in thick granules of sugar. :) By the way, his wife Great Grandma Evelyn is still living today. She is also in her late 90s. Strong bloodline!

In early February 2008, we lost both my Grandfather and Great Grandfather within 3 days of one another. It was definitely a sad week for our family and it hit my mother especially hard. This man had adopted her and raised her as his own child from the age of three.

Not two weeks after my grandfathers had passed, Paul and I found out we were pregnant. We had conceived shortly after their deaths. I believe I knew deep down we would be having a boy, at least if my grandfather's had anything to do with it :). We were so thrilled to tell our families.

At the same time we saw life enter into heaven, God repeated His amazing cycle and brought forth the life of my son here on earth.

10 comments:

Pen to Paper; Spirit to Soul said...

Oh, how precious!!! I know you are a proud Mom of that sweet little boy...and he will always have a very special place in your heart!!!

Pamela in TX

Linda said...

April, I can tell from how you spoke of your grandfather, that you are a very loving person. I am glad that you had both your grandpa and great grandpa to know and love.

And what a special gift our Lord gave you by giving you a son to carry on the bloodline and heritage.

God is so good!

Your little guy is so cute!

Blessings!
Linda @ Truthful Tidbits

Sally-Ann said...

Can tell that you love your family very much! Cute, cute, cute little boy!

Holly said...

I am sorry you lost such 2 great people so close together. What joyous news to receive after such heartache. I'm sure they were both very glad for you.

Debbie Petras said...

I'm so glad to meet you through this meme. You make such an important point about loss and life. God is good!

It sounds like you had special grandpa's too (like mine). I was so happy to read your comment on Heart Choices telling me that your great grandma came from Norway too. Yes, maybe they were on the same boat. LOL.

BTW, my grandma was an excellent cook. She loved meeting people just as much as my grandpa but he was the more sanguine personality of the two.

Unknown said...

What great memories you have of your family!

Aspiemom said...

That is such a neat story, although Altzheimers is so sad and difficult for all involved. And losing your grandfather and great-grandfather so close together - wow, that is hard on a family!

I'm sure that just announcing your pregnancy lifted the hearts of your family, let alone introducing your little man into the world.

Thanks for visiting my blog today. I wish I could tell you how to do a 3-col. A friend was practicing designing blogs and did one for me last year. I have since designed my own blog, but I have used hers as a base in order to keep the 3-col. I wonder if we could copy my template for you and you could play around with it?

HappyascanB said...

Abolutely beautiful! God truly does give and take away!!

Verna said...

Precious memories.
He may not have known who you were, but you don't forget who they are.

Thank you for sharing this with us.

Lilyofthevalley - Tanya said...

What a special gift!