(Originally written on April 28, 2013)
My Grandma Johnston would have turned 85 today (April 29). I still remember very well her final days back in 2006... it was certainly a time of lots of change in my own life. I was on vacation back home after spending most of the previous year at Hillsdale College. Home just didn't feel the same as it had before... lots of my family and friends had moved forward quite a bit in their lives over the past year. I suppose I had too. But one thing that didn't change was what loyal and caring grandparents Grandpa and Grandma Johnston were to me. Over the previous year, she still called my dorm room regularly to talk about the things we usually did, and they both actually came to visit me at the college one time and really enjoyed it.
That summer, the two of them still came over to visit regularly and attended my church softball games. But I started to notice a gradual change in my grandma over that time. She was never the most outgoing person in the world, but she was always really happy when visiting with her family. She was tired a lot more often and would complain about how tough it was to get old. I didn't really know what to make of it. We didn't know it at the time, but she was dealing with the early stages of Wegener's, a disease I had never heard of and really still don't know much about.
Nonetheless, my family still has some good memories from those final weeks of her life. My grandparents were always huge Tigers fans (although they also watched the Cubs after I had picked them as my favorite team many years earlier), and after many years of losing they were having an amazing season. Of course, there was always baseball to talk about. And there was plenty to report from my year in college. One of my last non-hospital memories of my grandma came one evening out at my aunt and uncle's house, when we all went out on a boat on the lake. We were talking about things I had studied in college - Austrian economics, Mises, Hayek, Bastiat, and the like (how many 21 year olds talk about this with their grandparents?) - along with lighter stuff, like all the great friends I had made. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but it felt like the calm before the storm... I just had a feeling that there wouldn't be many more nights like this one.
It was around the end of July when my grandma was finally admitted to the hospital, as her health situation was getting much worse. I would head up there almost every day to visit, until August 10, when the doctors were losing her and were forced to do emergency surgery. I think possibly the most emotional moment of my life came that afternoon, when my grandpa walked in and saw her in her hospital bed dying. Overcome with grief, he collapsed into a chair, and after he somewhat composed himself said he had no reason to live without her. That might have been the first time as an adult that I openly cried. The surgery was successful, and she showed slight improvement over the next few days, but on August 16, in the late afternoon surrounded by about a dozen family members, she passed away. There was a memorial service, the day before I was scheduled to return to Hillsdale. I typed out some remarks to read at the service that ended up being about four pages long... unfortunately I think I have since lost them. The next day, as my family drove away after helping me move back to Hillsdale, I kinda looked around for a minute and stood by myself before catching up with friends, praying for strength from God to get through the coming days and weeks.
It was tough, but I did make it through and ended up, as always, having another great semester at Hillsdale. A lot has happened since then... I graduated from college, started my career, and my grandpa did pass away in 2009... but my grandma's impact on those who were closest to her has never changed. Today is yet another opportunity to commit myself to continuing the godly legacy that she passed down to future generations. For all the other memories and interests that we shared, by far that was the most important.
