Amazing Grace

My Friend's Mom died yesterday.
Actually, she died in her sleep, at the age of 104, the night before last.
I knew about it because I read her daugher's blog yesterday morning, but I faced a day filled with Dr.s appointments for my own Mom who will soon be 95, my DH, and myself.
I didn't call my friend because I knew she must have been up all night and even in the best of times, she's a night owl who stays up much later and sleeps later than I do.

I had to get started early with the round of appointments, so as is my wont, I compartmentalized the sad news. Between the time I arrived home from my last appointment and the time I had to take my Mom to an evening class, my friend called me. "I'm touching base," she said in a grief stricken voice.
I expressed my concdolences, and we chatted a moment.

This morning I woke overome by sadness for my friends loss.

I was priviliged to meet my friend's Mom several times, but the time I remember best was in the emergency room of the local hospital.

Another friend had called me. She'd been recently diagnosed as diabetic and was trying to regulate her insulin dosage.
"My sugar's at 60," she said, "I think that's pretty low."
"Eat, eat, eat, we're on our way!" I instructed.

At the ER, we found my friend and her Mom. Her Mom was 101 then, still beautiful, and trying er best to understand why other patiernts were being taken before her.
As it turned out, she was already designated to be kept over night, but there was no bed
available for her. There she was, one hundred and one years old, sitting in a wheel chair at 11:00 at night with a leg that pained her, and yet others, come lately others like my diabetic friend, were being taken back to the beds in the ER.

Now this is the important part, I heard her explaining to herself why others took presidence over herself. As they whisked someone away to obviously more comfortable and peaceful environs, she would say,quietly to herself, something about that person needing immediate attention and care more than she did. She said those things, not sarcastically, resentfully,or self-servingly, but as though telling herself that it was right and just and that she just needed patience. She didn't complain, howl or demand. She endured....with the most Amazing Grace, and that is what I will never forget.

When they finally found a bed for her, I was able to chat with her for a minute and I'll always consider it an honor that she remembered me at her next birthday party, her one hundred and second.

She was a great and gracious lady who epitimized the Greatest Generation. With her passing we are all bereft, but none so much as my dear frined, her Daughter and her family.
I am so sorry and so saddened for them.