Christmas is a time for....

After seeing 2012 the other night, it made me think about the coming holiday. Even if the whole theory about the world ending in 2012 isn’t true, it still makes you want to spend time with your family.
The whole premise of the film is that the world is falling apart and is soon to be gone. It really makes you think about how precious time is. Even though the movie is not real it still brings up good points. In the film John Cusack’s character is divorced from his wife and barely spends anytime with his two children. As soon as the Earth’s destabilization starts he sees just how important his family is to him and how much he wants to be with them and an active part of their lives.

The thought that springs into my mind is the old adage of; you never know what is going to happen, as well as be prepared for anything to happen.
During this time of year we want to be around those we love and care about as much as possible.
As I mentioned in my Thanksgiving column, my grandmother is in a nursing home. Do to school I don’t get to see her as much as I would like to, especially with school. With the holiday season in full swing, it is hard to be away from family.
When I was younger the only time I saw my grandparents was during the holidays. They always worked and barely came up to see us. They only lived in Los Angeles, which at the time was only about two hours away from us, on a good traffic day.
I always have remembered that whenever it was Grandparents day, they were never there. I was always the only kid, who didn’t have her grandparents there with her. I went to a private school, so we always did something special. At the time I played piano, so I usually performed a song or two during chapel. Some of the other kids would “lend” me their grandparents for part of the day. The other grandparents were really generous about sharing their appreciation for all of the kids.
Once my grandparents retired, I hoped that the work excuse would no longer be there and that I would see them more often. Unfortunately I didn’t see them as often as I had hoped. Once we moved up to Northern California, not much changed either. We constantly tried to get them to move up here to be surrounded by family. My sisters both live up here, and my uncle is only a couple hours away. They still resisted coming up here though.

When my grandmother first became sick, the doctors tried to figure out what was wrong, but for months they could not come to a solid conclusion. Finally they found a mass on her lung. She went into surgery about a month later, and my mother went down to help. She stayed down there for two months helping with my grandmother’s recovery.
She was getting better.

About two months after, my mom came back home. Shortly after m grandmother started feeling ill again.

Once again the doctors poked and prodded at her.
She had scan after scan done, to see what was wrong.

They found that there was another mass on her adrenal gland.

It was inoperable.

My family started the long search of finding somewhere for her to go to be treated.
We found a doctor up here, and we made the decision to move her and my grandfather up to Grass Valley, and into our home.

Unfortunately treatment was not working for her, and she stopped.

Out of all the years I wanted to spend with my grandmother, this was not really what I had in mind.

Now all I want to do is spend as much time with her as possible.

This Christmas may be the last that I spend with her, and I want to make the most of it.

As Cusack found out in 2012, being with family is the only thing that matters.