Grateful & Thankful

The agonies of life struck my family a few weeks ago. My 86-year old grandmother’s body began to weaken and has been trying to shut down ever since.

Now, I’m not real good with these type of things: sickness, death, extreme compassion. I know that’s a terrible thing to say, but I physically do not know how to react to stuff like this. For some reason it just makes me very uncomfortable … so I just don’t deal with it, until it all builds up and then I deal with it on my own in private (Sidenote: One of my good friends told me last night that there is no right or wrong way to deal with things like this, and I know she’s right. But then again, I’ve gotten a lot of smack over the past few weeks about how I handle stuff like this so, I’m not sure where I fall in the grand scheme of things).

Throughout this entire end-of-life process, more and more people have become aware of what my mom (because it really is her, not me, going through it all. I haven’t had an actual conversation with the woman in over week) is dealing with. One of those people is a woman my mom works with; I call her Ms Pat.

Background – Ms. Pat sings in the choir at the church I’ve been visiting for a while. When she learned I like to sing and that I am alto just like her, she invited me to come with her to a rehearsal. This was about a month ago.

She introduced me to a bunch of her friends and then she introduced me to the choir director, Dan Odle. I talked to him for MAYBE two minutes. He told me he was glad I was visiting and that he would love it if I came back. You know, normal introductory conversation.

Fast forward to yesterday afternoon.

I get a phone call from an unlisted number while I’m at work. I hesitantly answer it. I hate getting calls from unknown numbers. For some reason they scare me like I’m about to get real bad news or something.

“Hi Amy, this is Dan Odle from HS Baptist Church.”

My heart began beating faster, and I started to get real uncomfortable. My initial thought was that he was calling to see why I hadn’t shown up for rehearsal over the past few weeks. But he went on to say …

“I’m calling because I heard about your grandmother. I want you to know that I am thinking of you and praying for you and if there’s anything we can do please let me know.”

Shock of shockers. I mean … definitely last thing I expected to hear on the other end of that call. He went onto ask me how she was, and I gave the best update I possibly could. And then he asked if he could pray with me real quick … And right there, over the phone Dan Odle, a man I’ve only spoken to once and it was for maybe two minutes a month ago, prayed with me over the phone.

I had to leave my desk and go to the conference room when he began praying because I just lost it. Who does stuff like that anymore?  I had had a really bad day yesterday anyway and really was beginning to lose my faith in humanity in general.

And then that phone call happened.  

It really just put everything in perspective and helped me see what’s important and what’s not. What types of things are worthy of my time, my energy and what’s not.

I was reminded that I will be remembered by how I treat people.  And I’ve been on both sides of the coin. I’ve been treated and talked to pretty ugly by people, and I know I’ve done the same thing. And to go even further, my greatest challenge is not even being kind, but merely tolerant of those who I feel have done me wrong. Definitely my biggest weakness.

If everyone (including myself) just stopped and looked at the world through the eyes of someone like Dan Odle … this world would be a completely different place.

I am so grateful and thankful for people like Dan and Ms. Pat and hope I can be an encouragement to someone like they have been to me.