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Hi, I'm just wondering if anybody could please keep me and my family in prayer right now, especially my mother. Right now my grandfather is in a nursing home type place. His health has been deteriorating for quite some time now, but the pace at which it has been deteriorating has been quickly increasing ever since his stroke about two months ago. His eyesight has been very poor because of it and his memory has been declining worse and worse. He is often disoriented and thinks he is back in the Vietnam war, to thinking he is living with one of my aunts or uncles. It's near impossible to talk to him, because his mind just isn't there anymore and he has a very hard time responding to what you say. He'll talk back to you, he just doesn't often respond back with things that make much sense. As it stands right now...it doesn't look like he will be returning to his home and it doesn't seem as though he will be around for very much longer.

Honestly I'm not sure how I feel. I have never been close to my grandfather. I don't mean that we don't like each other, it's just he's never been a part of my life, really. I mean, I do see him but we've never had any sort of real grandfather-granddaughter relationship. He's my grandfather, though, and I love him and seeing him like this is extremely hard. Though he's over an hour's drive away, I visit him with my mom as much as I can because I want to spend as much time with him as possible, no matter how much it hurts to see him that way.

I think though, as hard as it is on me and my siblings, it's even harder on my mother. I can see the pained expression on her face every time she hangs up on the phone with him and she realizes his health has declined even farther. Despite not being super close with her family, he's still her dad and I know this has to be crazy hard on her. Especially since she just lost her brother (my uncle) only two years ago.

Please, if you could, just pray that God be with us and that this wouldn't be too difficult a time to go through. I only just got over the pain of losing my uncle (he was the only one from her side of the family any of us had a close relationship with) and I don't know that I can take that kind of pain again so soon. I don't think it will hurt as much as my uncle, because we're really not that close, but...I'm worried for my mother and my sister especially. I know my mother will be okay, but...I don't like seeing her so sad. My sister I am worried for because she has aspergers and so she had difficulties with these kinds of things. I'm also worried for my brother, because for a rather long time he was angry with my grandfather over some things that have gone on in the past, and I worry that though he seems to be moving on from them, that he may hold regrets should our grandfather pass. So please, just pray for my family.

Also please pray that my grandfather is saved. He was a devout catholic for as long as I knew him, but...I'm not sure. My mother tried to talk to him about it, and he said he knew Jesus and that Jesus was the only way to be saved. Like I said though, his mind isn't all there and I don't know if he was only agreeing with my mother or if he meant it. His mind now is so far gone, I don't even know that he would understand what was being said. I know God can do all things, though, and so if he is not saved...please pray that there would still be some way, some how for him to be. I would talk to him myself, but...I have never been the person for the job, even when he was altogether 'there'. Not out of fear or anything like that, but simply because I am fairly certain he wouldn't be very responsive to me due to us having very different faiths and not really having much of a relationship. (He loves me and I love him, but like I said, we're not close).

Thank you very much! :3 I truly appreciate the prayers.

We went to go visit him last weekend and he actually seemed to be doing a bit better. I'm not going to lie, he's still very sick, but he seems to be feeling a bit better emotionally since he got moved to a new hospital. The place he was in before wasn't a very nice place, so one of my uncles had him transferred somewhere else and he seems to be getting much better care there. :3

My brother may even come up with us the next time we go see him (not sure when that will be, hopefully sometime soon-ish). He did go with us the time before that which is a huge step for him (he used to adamantly refuse to see anybody from my mother's side of the family), so I think he is starting to let go of some of the anger he had towards them. :3

Thank you, that means a lot.

I know a lot of times I feel useless when I go to visit him because frankly, I never even knew how to talk to him before he got sick. Now that he can hardly hear me or remember things, I find it even harder to talk to him. (Though I suppose the upside to that is if I accidentally say the wrong thing, he'll never remember it and may not even hear it...) My mom does most of the talking, though I do try to say things that are relevant to their conversations. And I know one time when he was having one of his nightmares (he used to get them pretty bad at the other place he was at) I tried to talk to him as gently as I could to help calm him down while my mom was talking to a nurse. It didn't seem to do much good, but I did try my best to help him.

I know it means a lot to him that I come though, because he always says how happy he is that we come to see him. :3 I'm always very happy to hear it, because I honestly do love him and want to spend whatever time I can with him before he passes on. Plus I get to help brighten his day, which also makes me fairly happy. :3