My Grandpa

My grandpa has been calling me nothing but Big Butt and sometimes B.B. for short this past week. I know he doesn't mean to be so insulting and I try to fling it right back in a cheeky kind of way because I know he likes people to kid around with him, but it's getting harder. I remember what he was like with me before and it's really difficult to see him act so completely different now. Even the way he looks has change almost beyond comprehension. Where once his eyes were sharp and focused, they are now cloudy and undilated. His cheeks sag and his body is so week and frail he can barely get around.

Yet it took both my grandma and myself to herd him back into the house today when he decided to check out his boat in the backyard. He almost fell down the steps. That's almost all he talks about: how he's going to get a new boat for his birthday. He can't afford it and couldn't ride around in it even if he had it, but his mind is stuck on it.

When I told him last night that he couldn't go outside and I watched him just stand there looking out the window I could hardly bare it. Who am I to tell my own grandpa what he could or couldn't do. He looked like he was about to cry. It made me feel so mean and uncaring. He just isn't the person that he was anymore and we're forced to treat him like a child because he can't make rational decisions for himself anymore.

And yet, sometimes when I'm in conversation with him, it's like there's nothing wrong with him and I wonder if the doctor's are just making it all up and he's just physically feeble. And then the cycle starts up again.

I wonder if this is how it's always like for those who live this long? It seems so cruel to have such an ending.

But I know that our God is the Redeemer. So how does He redeem situations like this?