Life is...beautiful

Like so many other nights over the past year, last night I was in another hospital room, visiting my grandmother...my Nanny.

She was rushed from her nursing home to the ER yesterday late morning/early afternoon to due what the doctors are reluctantly calling a stroke. I only say reluctantly because the tests they ran yesterday were not completed. But the doctors kept saying stroke. Stroke. And respirator. She is unable to breathe on her own. Respirator. Medical Surgical Intensive Care Unit.

My mom and her brother were there in the afternoon and later in the night mom, Jessica, Christopher and I went to see her. In the Medical Surgical Intensive Care Unit where she was breathing only because of a respirator because of a stroke.

The little room had small touches that reminded me of a hotel. The counter was a laminate that resembled a dark wood. The chair was cushiony. I suppose they do this to make the place more welcoming because it is, after all, a very frightening place. But a thousand cushiony chairs wouldn't hide the fact that Nanny was in a hospital bed hooked up to wires and tubes and unable to breathe. No cushion is soft enough to negate that blow.

We left after a bit and went to grab a bite to eat. Christopher said there is a lawyer at his firm whose wife just had a baby the other day. Five hours later, the baby died. Five hours.

I believe that every life has meaning and a purpose. That every life is beautiful.

Nanny's purpose was to fall in love with my grandfather and have two children who went on to have their own. She created a family that has seen it's share of happiness and sorrow, but has always seen it through together. Her journey has been long and fruitful. And now, as her journey winds down, I feel confident that she can hold her head up high and tell herself she made it. She fulfilled her life's purpose.

But what of that child? The child who breathed on this earth for five hours? What was the life's purpose of that baby? I'm trying to figure that one out.

And I'm trying to figure out my own.

As I prepared to walk out of Nanny's room, I placed my fingers gently on part of her hand.

"I love you, Nanny." I said a bit too loud, hopping that my voice could reach her, wherever she was.

No response. Only the sound of the respirator.

Perhaps that's the answer though. Perhaps the purpose of all our lives is simply love. Loving your own special group of people; mothers, brothers, friends, cousins, girlfriends, etc. Nothing in this world makes us feel more complete or hurts more. At the end of the day, the people we love are all that matter...all we live for. Whether they've been loved for 85 years or five hours, they have been loved completely. And that's beautiful.