Unfailing love. Unconditional love.

I started this blog as a way to update friends and family on what I'm up to. So, a given blog post is about the here and now.

What's funny to me is that I feel priority should be given to stories that are not here and not now. Several years ago, after my dad died, the remaining members of my family (my mom, my sister and I) started "storytime." Each week, one of us would share a story about our lives. The caveat was that the stories should be at least one year old. I felt that if you still remembered it a year later, then it clearly had an impact on you. As we were all living apart at the time, we did storytime via email. The plus is that all the stories are hidden somewhere in Gmail, so we can look them up later.

This week, my grandma entered hospice care. "Hospice care" usually means the doctors think a person has less than six months to live.

From Ms. Green

Last week, Grandma had a visitor from Seattle! Her name is Ms. Green. Here, we are eating dim sum! The restaurant is called Hong Kong Islander (on Freeport Blvd).

Ms. Green helped care for Grandma while Mom went to her college reunion.

I first met Ms. Green about five years ago, when I moved to Seattle. Grandma wanted to visit the Puyallup Fair, and thankfully Ms. Green came and pushed Grandma all over. Three years ago, Ms. Green helped me take Grandma and another of Grandma's friends to Kingston. Fond memories.

Grandma is 94 years old. Early this morning, Grandma was having such trouble breathing that I thought she might be in a coma. Thankfully, I was wrong. It's hard to believe that only a couple months ago Grandma could walk outside. Three years ago we were driving all over Seattle. And five years ago, we went to Israel together!

From Geoff and Natalie

On the flipside, here is a photo of me and baby Natalie. It's such a nice photo, I had to include it. =)

Natalie will be 1 year old just before Grandma turns 95. Thanks to Baby Natalie, I can say that I've officially changed a diaper!

I titled this post, "Unfailing love. Unconditional love." I was reading the book of Hosea today. Hosea 10:12 says,

Sow righteousness for yourselves,
reap the fruit of unfailing love,
and break up your unplowed ground;
for it is time to seek the LORD,
until he comes
and showers his righteousness on you.

I was struck by that phrase, "unfailing love." The author (who may be God) could have said, "reap the fruit of love." But maybe he knew that wasn't good enough. Maybe he had experienced much failing love. We all can tell a story like that, right?

"Unconditional love" is something I've always associated with Jesus. If you read the Bible, you'll see that he was very good at loving people that others had excuses for not loving. We all can tell a story about conditional love, too, right?

With Grandma perhaps nearing the end of this life, and Natalie just starting hers, it's easy to think fondly about them. It's easy to think we'll have love that never fails. Love that is never contractual. But do we really love everyone that way? I don't. I forget that <enter unloved person here> was once a helpless baby. I forget that <enter unloved person here> will someday be helpless before the end of life, hopefully about to go to heaven.

Today, I pray that I will be more generous in love.