Critical Thinking

Within the last few years I have done a lot of critical thinking. Let see, where do I start? July 2002, my family and I went to Arkansas to celebrate my grandmother's (dad's mom) 93rd birthday. My dad and his sibling had decided to place grandmother in a nursing facility and I did not think that it was good idea because she had lived at home for all these years and now they were deciding to take her from all that she knew. My grandmother had been in a wheelchair for about eight years and had not been able to use her legs at all, so we had been helping her all this time why change now was my thinking? My Aunt Ruthie who had been living with grandmother (rent free) told me that I was JUST a grandchild and I had no say in the matter. My exact words were, "she will be dead in a month." My father is the youngest child of 16 children and he and I both living in Kansas City had checked into home healthcare agency that could help us and we would possibly bring grandmother to KC to live. Before we could inform them what we were going to do she had been placed in a nursing facility against her will and sitting lonely day after day. So when I went on vacation to Arkansas I camp out at the facility day and night for 10 days to see how they were treating and actually to see if my Aunt Ruthie and other relatives were coming to visit her. We took her to the family house for her party on the fourth of July and took her back to the facility on the evening of the 5th and from the 5th of July until the 14th of July I was there every day and no one else was bothering to come to visit her. I went to my mother's house to get a change of clothes and when I returned they were rushing her to the hospital. I was scheduled to leave in two days. She was very bad. Her body had shut down and I did not realize that it had. The doctor stated that because I was there laying with her for so many days that in her mind she felt abandon. We left for KC on the morning of the 17th and on August second I received an early morning call stating that my grandmother had passed. All I could think of was my exact words, "she will be dead in a month." What was I thinking when I said such a thing?

The saga continues, a month later my mother's