Breath for these bones

My grandmother reaches for my hand to steady herself as she inches from her bed each of these days.
I’ve been in Colorado now for 12 days now.  Out here to respond to my father’s call for us to return as my grandmother had reached a weight of a mere 62lbs. Expecting that this was her last leg, I flew out to be a support and to say goodbye. 
Since then, my days have slowed significantly as I spend most of my time simply sitting with my grandmother.  Often, there are no words exchanged, as my questions yield jumbled responses or mere silence.  I’ve come to realize in the stillness of watching my grandmother breathe in and out, in and out that I have been living out of pride.  “I can do something here,” I think to myself. 
And my grandmother simply stares off into space making me confront the fact that I rely on my verbal expressions, my mental acuity, and my empathic connection to give and receive love.  And now, with all these abilities nullified, I am all but useless.  Yet love remains somehow because that’s what needs to be expressed.  Maybe not expressed from me because I’ve turned inward and selfish, but expressed from our Maker.  And there it is… some sort of otherworldly love that wraps over the two of us like cellophane, tight and form fitting; freshness in, decay out.
But Death with his wispy tendrils can still shake the bones in these 97 year old hands.  What will happen when she decides that his hand is tangible and ours are wispy?  What will happen when she takes his hand instead of ours? I like to imagine her being ferried to the far side banks of Jordan.  Where her friends and my grandfather stand by and by.  And as she steps off that boat a new breath fills her and wraps her—the love that was once otherworldly is now her whole world.  Her new world.