you helped me

So, blog buddies. You helped me today. Bet you didn't know that.

I was visiting my friend Liz. She has MS. Her grandmother is Lillian, you may remember her from this post. Well, this week Lillian went back into the hospital. Her heart is shutting down. The doctors, in consultation with her daughters, decided that the best course would be to make her last days as peaceful as possible. This meant Hospice care, which began today as Lillian came home for the last time.

So I was sitting with Liz, who suffers some disability because of her MS, enough that she can't work anymore and some things, especially things like getting out of bed in the morning, are difficult. Liz had been the strong one in the family until she got sick. Her husband disengaged and left. She moved in with her mom and grandmother. Liz's mother suffered a major heart attack some years ago, one which almost killed her, and which seemed to render her permanantly infirm. Liz's father is long dead from liver cancer. About the only good thing arising from Liz's MS: it has brought her mother back to life, the doctor's are astounded at how well she is doing.

Lillian rested on her hospice bed in the living room while Liz and I talked in the kitchen. "I can't do much. I can't be the one who is strong anymore. About the only thing I can do is hold Nanna's hand," she said as more tears fell from eyes that have already shed so many.

When she finished speaking, I mentioned some of the things you all told me when I said something similar* just a couple of weeks ago. "If I were dying, Liz," I said, "the thing I'd want most is for someone to hold my hand." I said, "that in itself is a lot."

Liz was as encouraged by what you said as I was.

I just wanted to say thank you.

*That previous post was written on the night of the great blogger-post feeding frenzy. The comments currently visible were written after I reposted it the following, much calmer day. This means that a couple of very encouraging comments were lost, but not before I had a chance to read them. I have them still, as haloscan has retained them even though the post itself no longer exists.