Bi And Large

Karma is a funny thing.

It's also one of the oddities of personality that the people who can be the most hurtful are often also some of the kindest and sweetest people you'll ever meet. And in the case of my grandparents (my mom's parents) this is absolutely true. I don't make any excuses for some of the things said or done to me as a child - but at the same time I look at the lives they lived towards others and I know they were very generous, loving people. Especially towards children. They had a real gift especially for welcoming in foster kids or anyone else who just might need someone right then. They had a way of making kids who felt scared or upset feel at ease and secure. They spent their whole lives as long as I knew them lending a helping hand to all kinds of families that they just happened to cross paths with who needed a little boost: the disabled, the displaced, the unemployed, the immigrants, the invisible. Never just some cash and a pat on the back, they formed friendships, taught skills, cooked together, talked and laughed, helped others navigate the world. They did a lot of good for a lot of people.

I have a cousin on that side of the family, the youngest son of their youngest son, who was born with a very rare immune disorder. He spent almost his entire life at Children's Hospital, and died when he was 8 years old. During that time my grandparents of course spent a lot of time at Children's, and found they enjoyed it. After my cousin passed on, they didn't stop going. They stayed on as volunteers becoming 'grandparents' to all of the other long term severely ill children there, especially those who had little or no family to be with them. In some cases, families would use all the money they had to send their children to this hospital for treatment, and there was no money for anyone else to travel with them so they were alone. In some cases, families found it too difficult to be with their children as they died. In some cases, family didn't exist. In some cases, families just didn't care. So my entire childhood, this is what my grandparents did, they spent all their time at the hospital, forming great relationships with the terminally ill kids and helping their families down that end of life road. They read books and brought treats and sat by beds and just generally were grandma and papa.

So one year, they met a little girl named Misty. Misty was born with several severe disabilities, including spina bifida, and her mother abandoned her. She was put into the system, but that poor girl never once found a decent foster home. It was just one crummy, abusive or neglectful home after another. Not only did she have physical disabilities to overcome but she had no one to encourage her, teach her, love her, cuddle her, or even be a stable parent as she shuffled from one home to another. But it never stopped her. The state paid for her surgeries so she was always at Children's and the nurses there and my grandparents became her stability. They knew her situation and took a special interest in her and they were far more stable than any home she was briefly in, and they all loved her. My grandpa especially was really taken with her and they were fast friends. After she got out of surgery when no foster parent showed up, he'd be sitting by her bed waiting for her to wake up. They read and played and she got stronger and more able with every surgery over the years. Once when she ran away from a particularly scary home, my grandparents helped keep her safe and contact her social worker and get her into a better spot. When she turned 18, grandpa cosigned on her first car loan for her. The nurses too. One nurse helped set her up in a little apartment when she was old enough, and another helped Misty through college. Impressed by the nurses who had cared for her for so many years, Misty got her nursing degree and became a LVN and got a great job at the VA hospital. This little kid that was just so much rubbish to someone, that people thought would just be useless, turned out to be smart and able and wonderful because people cared about her. I know my grandparents were SO proud of her and all that she had become.

Well now my grandparents are at the end of their lives. They are in their late 80's / early 90's, and their health is slipping away. They haven't been able to volunteer at the hospital in some years. My grandfather's Parkinson's is really bad now, and he gets forgetful and confused. A couple weeks ago he had to go in for some surgery to repair a hernia. It all went well, especially considering his age! So he gets out of surgery, and who do you think his nurse was, sitting by his bed waiting for him to wake up? It was Misty. All these years later and the little 'throw-away' girl he had adored and encouraged and had seen through to adulthood was working at the same VA hospital where he had his surgery and happened to be his nurse this time.

Life is funny.