My grandma

When she was young, she looked like a movie star, she was so beautiful. She looked like a movie star when her Greek immigrant father was killed building the railroad two days after her high school graduation. Later, she became the stunning mother of four, and a farmwife in the North Dakota Outback, which is no easy life. And she upheld her marriage vows through some pretty hard years, when other people would have shaken.

These days, her vision is weakened, her hearing impaired. After so many years of smoking and "the sugar," she cannot taste or smell much. Widowed for ten years, she can't see to read the paper for herself or hear Days of Our Lives on the television, or listen to the radio. This will happen to most of us. We will be left alone when our other half dies.

Together, loss of all these senses adds up to a low quality of life. These are physical things, and remind me of how easily damaged are our bodies. But the human body is only an Earth vehicle. These observations likely won't comfort her tonight, when tomorrow the doctor may take her leg.

I began thinking, "What else can this woman possibly lose?"

But though eighty-one, and the movie star face has faded, she has a beautiful heart. And I earnestly pray that gorgeous soul will survive tomorrow, and the days that follow. I told her tonight as she was packing for the hospital to not forget her Bible. She told me she can't read it anyway, and I told her she needs to have it nearby, in case someone wants to read to her. Furthermore, my mom tells me I inherited my tough survivor instincts, my survivorocity, from this amazing woman. So I needed her to be brave and I will be praying for her.