Waiting

I've been to more funerals than I can remember through the course of my life.  I have said goodbye to countless loved ones.  But I have never waited so anxiously for Death to come.  I've never been so close but still had to sit back and watch someone I love suffer so much.  Grandma hasn't been out of bed in a little over two weeks now...her muscles suddenly drew up so much that it was too painful for her to get her out of bed.  Saturday morning (a week ago) we tried to get her to eat a little bit of coffee cake...very soft, melt-in-your-mouth, delicious coffee cake...and when she choked on three consecutive small bites because she couldn't wake up enough to swallow well, we quit trying, for her own sake.  We'd signed her up for hospice care a little over a month ago (or was it two? days run together around here) and that was their advice...when moving becomes too painful, stop.  When eating becomes too difficult, stop.  Move to soft-solids (yogurt, applesauce, etc.)  So I tried yogurt.  She got strangled on that too.  By the end of that day, her chest would expand five or six times or more before she'd actually take in breath, and that breath would be part wheeze, part groan, part liquidy snore.  Then she'd breath several shallow breaths in quick succession, and then not breathe at all for 20-30 seconds.  She'd jerk her knees up to her chest and moan in pain when anyone touched her, but she wouldn't wake up even then.
I went to Covenant the next morning and asked them to pray for release for her.  That God would reach down and take her home and that her pain would cease.
Since those tiny, only-half-swallowed bites of coffee cake & yogurt over a week ago, she's had nothing to eat.  She's had nothing to drink, save a tiny bit of water from a 1/2"x1/2"x2/3" sponge on a stick that serves to moisten her mouth.  She hasn't been awake for more than two seconds together in that time, and that, only a few times.  I don't understand why she's still here.  I don't understand why God is letting her suffer.  My Grandma (my REAL Grandma, not the facade of my Grandma from a few posts back)...my Grandma never hurt anybody in her life.  She never intentionally inflicted pain on another living soul.  She's a sweet lady who loves God and loves her family...and I don't understand why she's allowed to suffer.  Tonight, she started the irregular breathing again, like she was doing last week, but more extreme.  I set a timer for three minutes and counted the number of breaths she took.  Ten.  In THREE MINUTES.  She went over a minute with no breath at all several times this evening.  Average respiration for a healthy adult at rest is twelve per minute.  When she does breathe, it is strained.  I've given her all the morphine she's supposed to have, but still her breathing is labored and she's grimacing in pain.  I want her suffering to stop but I can't do anything for her but wait.  Sara says I'm probably  more miserable right now than Grandma herself is, because at least she can apparently sleep right through it...and she's probably right.  But for her sake, I want the pain to end.  I want her to see my Granddaddy again.  I want her to see her Mama again.  I want her to smile and walk and dance in the presence of Jesus.

Better is one day in Your court
Better is one day in Your house
Better is one day in Your court
Than thousands elsewhere
Than thousands elsewhere