When You Say Nothing At All

On the way home from Stake conference today we called into see Nan who had a stroke a few weeks ago. She is at hospital in Deloraine. I had heard that she wasn't great and had expected her to not be very good at all. I actually wasn't sure if I wanted to see her like that, but knew I would regret it if I didn't go and she does pass away soon without recovering very much.

When we walked in I was quite surprised. She obviously knew that we were all there and was trying really hard to respond to us - even mouthing things to try to talk, and gave us some little smiles. Pop was sitting right next to her bed holding her hand.

Every now and then she would move her hand, and then grab Pop's hand back again.


She was really happy to see Kobe and put her hand around him as soon as I sat him down next to her.

It was nice as Auntie Wanda and Uncle Wally were also there as well as Tim, Helene and their boys.


The most amazing thing was when I put Noah right in between Nan and Pop. Nan straight away lifted her hand from Pop's and started stroking Noah's hair. She was desperately trying to say something and her eyes welled up with tears and and her lip started to quiver. It was like she really wanted to say something, but just couldn't get it out.

It was so lovely as Pop was holding onto Nan's hand and also grabbed Noah's at the same time (notice the quick change of clothes! When I grabbed him out of his chair he was very wet!). Nan just kept her eyes on Noah the whole time and you could see in her eyes how much love she had for him.

Pop kept commenting on how 'bright' Nan was today and that she was having a good day. He also seemed really good and was chatting away the whole time. He also said how he is really liking Grenoch and how they look after him really well there. He kept saying 'you do a great job, Lis', when we were dealing with Noah (suctioning etc) and then said that he had better get building the boat (ark) with him soon with all the bush fires, wars, floods and things going on at the moment.

Pop seems to love that Harrison is called 'Harri,' and that he has the same name as him. He kept saying how there were two 'Harry's' and when we were leaving all we could hear as we walked up the hall was 'bye Harri, bye Harri', from Pop.

I'm really glad we went in to see Nan and that she was having a good day. It was nice to know that she knew we were there and was trying to respond to us. Every time I see Nan and Pop I wonder whether it will be the last, and they always amaze me. Tonight we had a talk about it with the boys and Harri said 'if Nan dies, Dad and Jalen and Kobe and Noah and Mum and me will all cry, won't we Mum'. I told him we would but we would also be happy and he then said 'because she will be with Heavenly Father!'. We hope that Nan will be around for a lot longer so we can visit her again, and she will be much better and will be able to say what she wants to say.