Changes

Family dinner this weekend to celebrate Nan's birthday and my birthday.

If you add our ages together, we're about a billion years old. Well, that might be a slight exaggeration but she's getting up there. Not me, just her.

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Ninety-seven years old. She's seen a whole lot of change in her life. I was helping her in the bathroom and while she was washing her hands, she said very quietly, "Sometimes I wish I wasn't here."

I wanted to cry.

Not because I would miss her. Which I will.

But because I'm starting to understand how she's feeling. She keeps telling us she feels like a burden. Like a bother. She feels like she's a lot of work.

It doesn't matter how much we assure her she is not a lot of work, or a lot of bother. She feels that way.

I think I would too, standing in her shoes.

We women are so used to being the caregivers, and the caretakers, that it doesn't sit right to have the tables reversed and accept care from someone else. 

J and D sharing a nice moment. They are so close. I wonder if they will stay that way.

And that makes me want to cry, too.

Because I know how often I get to see my closest cousins. It's not often enough because we don't live near each other.

I wonder if they know how much their lives will change as they grow up. 

And grow away.

I want to hold her and never let go.

I want to be five years old, snuggled up next to her. Sitting between her and my mom and listening to the two of them talking long into the night.

Not wanting to close my eyes because then I'd fall asleep and would miss exciting things.

When I was five, I didn't appreciate how blessed I was to have them - my mom and my Nan. The two most important women in my life.

I appreciate it now. 

And I can't tell my mom how much I was blessed by her. But I tell my Nan. Every chance I get, I tell her.

Now I need to tell the other women in my life how blessed I am by them. My daughter. My mother-in-law. My sisters and my sisters-in-law. My nieces.

And my girlfriends. Sisters of my heart.

Oh yes, these women bless me every day. And I'm oh-so-glad that as life changes, they stay constant.