There for the Grace of God Go I

 

I try to catch you as I see you fold to the kitchen floor. Your eyes stare at me with a glazed over look as if to scream help me. I call out your name as I beg for some response. Finally, in a low voice that's slurred, I hear, “I’m ok.”  Your daughter and I try to move you to the bedroom…Daddy, Daddy!. I hear our daughter screaming your name. We try to help you to to the floor. Your body stiffens, eyes rolled back….Not Yet, I say to myself. Don't leave us… Finally, I hear that low sound. “I’m ok.”  You are sweating so, clammy, shaken, spoken words that make no sense. The ambulance comes and time  seems to stand still the rest of the day. The day is spent with doctors and tests and Family. What caused this interruption of our lives, we still don't know.
There is so much pain and suffering that surrounds us all. As I get older it seems there is more  health problems happening in not only our own lives but in so many family members and friends. Just since May this year, I have watched my own siblings suffer from Crones, Osteoporosis, Fractures, and Surgery's. My father back and forth to  doctors for dizziness and medical tests. One of our friends were in an explosion in the oilfield where 95% of his body was burned. My son-in-law is rushed to the ER this month with chest pain and ended up being his colon.  I myself have fought skin cancer with surgery and chemo treatments. I had Colonoscopy, Endoscopy, sonogram, and Scat scan just to mention a few. Passed from one doctor to the other.
I lay on the couch in my husbands hospital room and the day plays in my mind like an old rerun of a movie. I can hear him breathing quietly as he  finally sleeps and finally there is a since of peace.
I have always said God has a since of humor so I wonder why he didn't do our life's in a backwards way. Why didn't he create us to be Old and let the suffering pass quickly as we aged to our youth and then to our infant stage as then one day we just disappeared. The suffering would be over with and the infant would be happy and then return to God….But, that is not our choice to make. Getting old and going through the pain and suffering as we age is going to happen to us all. We just need to look around and thank God  for every breath, every moment we have. I look around and the suffering continues in the ones I  know and love . I have to remember, “There for the Grace of God, go I. “