I’m lucky to have more then one place to call home. I’ll always think of South Dakota as home, and then of course wherever we end up living as our own family. I went home about a week and a half ago because my Grandma passed away. She went into the hospital on a Monday and then Friday she passed away. My Mom, one Uncle, a cousin and his family, an old family friend and others were with her. She went quickly, with no pain, and in a way that had many people saying when it is their time, they hope to go like that.

Driving back to Texas was hard because I always call her and say okay we are in this town or we are this far or we are home now. Then she would tell the rest of my family. When we got home I text messaged at least eight people – Mom, a couple of uncles, a couple of cousins, and a friend. Just one small thing that is different in my life now.

Driving across the Plains calms me. We left on a Friday in the early afternoon but didn’t get out of Texas until Saturday morning. It sounds funny to some people but going through Kansas and Nebraska goes quickly. Kansas is flat and there are small towns often and even gas stations in the middle of nowhere. Nebraska is slightly hilly, with sandhills leading way to a forest.

It’s once I get into Nebraska that the calm starts. Hard to describe, it’s a feeling that you have to experience. Maybe it happens when you drive to the ocean or the mountains, and I wonder if it will happen the next time to go to South Dakota with my Grandma now gone.

The air smells different there, the rain brings out another smell, even water on dirt, concrete or grass can create that smell – like watering your grass or when a firetruck lays water down on dirt so the rain doesn’t toss so much of it up, and South Dakota has strong wind so it helps. The air smells different and driving home to Texas earlier this week I drove most of the way with the window down, wind blowing into the car and all the scents of the Plains with it.

My Grandma is sick. She’s been on dialysis for the past four plus years and usually does pretty good. She has asthma that doesn’t act up too often and does a great job with her diet to control her diabetes and to do well on dialysis. Over the weekend she started getting sick, or something was going on. She went to dialysis Monday morning and had a fast heart rate and was having a hard time getting a good breath. The ER dr didn’t waste any time and flew her to a larger hospital. I heard from my Mom that morning and then talked to one of my Uncles that evening.

After feeling reassured that she was doing okay I talked to my Mom tonight. She is leaving from where she lives to go see my Grandma and said she’ll let me know if I need to come home – but right now it doesn’t look good. Grandma is very frail and tired and though they thought she had fluid on her lungs, it may be something else.

My Grandma is 85 years old and she’s a tough lady. My Grandpa has been gone for 20 years and of course everyone dies, but for some reason I never really, really thought about my Grandma doing so. I was lucky to live next door to her for 20 years, only until I went to college did I move. I talk to her weekly and sometimes more then that. When I talked to her yesterday she sounded tired but that’s normal – you can’t really rest while in a hospital, plus she doesn’t feel good, and lots of family is up there to see her.

If you pray, please do so for her. This is a woman who had six children, one dying when he was a baby, who raised five kids who had thirteen kids who had thirty-something kids – and even those have had I think three. Please pray for her to be comfortable, for her to be able to get rest, for her to get better and if this is her time, for her to go peacefully. I know she’s had a great life and though I’m not ready to talk about her in the past tense, my family is also not one to wish for her to remain on machines or anything like that.