Can you remember a time in your life when you were on top of the world and everything was finally getting better? Then when you close your eyes and try to take all the happy goodness of life in, everything just freezes, disappears, and you realize that your life just came to a halting stop. I’ve been in this position before, and I pray everyday that I won’t ever have to go through it again.

First of all, my family means the world to me. On December 26, 2009, my family, my world was in the middle of a very painful predicament. It was my great grandmother. My family and I call her Momo. She has a very joyful and stubborn personality. When you’re around my great grandmother you can’t stop smiling, no matter how hard you might try. Momo knows what she wants and she won’t take no for an answer. My great grandmother’s personality, spunk, wisdom and experience are what make her the best role model a girl can have.

When I think about it my great grandmother has been through it all. She was alive during World War I, World War II, and when the Nazis took over Germany. Momo had been there when her husband passed away, his name was Bobo and that’s how we got her name. What must of really hurt Momo was when she had to go through the pain of when her own daughter died. These horrific events have made my great grandmother the stubborn little lady she is today. Worst of all is when the stubborn little lady causes some horrific events. Needless to say, Momo made a decision one day. This decision was that she was strong enough to live alone in her apartment. Oh, did I mention that my great grandmother, Momo is one hundred and two?
She is a very strong lady and until the day, December 26, 2009, everything was perfect. Momo had been doing great and carried out her daily routine of boiling her coffee on the stove, nursing her garden, and reading a classic novel. Then the phone rang, my mom picked it up and within an instant her face went from happy to devastated. I could her a rambling voice on the other end, then my mom said, “No, but why, when, how? Is she okay? Where is she?” As if those words didn’t get me worried enough, my Mother broke out in sobs of tears. I’d never seen my mom hurting so much before. Her checks got fire red, huge tear drops ran down the side of her face, her makeup was running and I didn’t know how to help. I said to my mom, “What’s wrong, who was that?” Suddenly my mom grabbed the car keys and said “Rachel, its Momo…We just need to get to the hospital fast!” The words kept running through my head like a broken CD, “It’s Momo” and “hospital.” Of course I thought of the worst, I thought my great grandmother was dead. When we got to the hospital, my heart started to beat again. My poor little Momo was sitting in bed, needles all over her, a bandage wrapped around her head and she was connected to the little machine that made the noise, “Beep, beep, beep.” Lying there in that ugly hospital bed, Momo looked so fragile and delicate. In the mean time, my mom was talking to the Doctor. I asked her what he said. My Mom said, “The Doctor thinks she will be okay. He said she was in the kitchen making her coffee, but when the tile in the Kitchen stopped and the carpet from the living room began; Momo tripped. She hit her head on the corner of the table and was knocked unconscious. She lost a lot of blood. The doctor said Momo was out for a few hours,” my eyes were full of water as I listened to what my mom had to say. My Mom went on, “When she woke up she was worried about the fire on the stove, but didn’t have the strength to reach the kitchen. He says we were lucky that she could crawl enough to be able to pull the tablecloth down off the table and reach a phone. He says Momo called the Paramedic and could only manage to get her address out of her. They had to break in through her window, they got her just in time.” I tried to imagine the body lying in the hospital bed on the floor bleeding. The image gave me goose bumps and made me cringe. I was trying to process what my mom just said, but one sentence hurt me the most. It was “The Doctor thinks she’ll be okay.” Thinks? I wasn’t in the mood for maybes. I needed to know facts. I had to know if my great grandmother was going to be okay or not.
My whole family was at the hospital within twenty minutes. Everyone was waiting, hoping, and praying that Momo would wake up. I had thousands of thoughts racing through my head. I kept praying and praying that I could go back and ask her more questions about her life. Then I wished I could be there when she fell and so I could catch her, but then I realized something. It was that God has it all under control. No matter what happens, it’s for a reason. In my heart, I still wanted for Momo to wake up. I guess I was so into my train of thought that I didn’t see the Doctor walk in. I watched my family stand up in an instance and appear with waiting faces. My heart was racing and I knew my family felt the same way. The Doctor’s mouth opened and all I heard was “She’s great and wants to see every single one of you.” I didn’t realize how much my body wanted to hear those same words because I instantly started screaming and jumping. I was immediately hushed by everyone around me. That day I learned many things that are crucial in one’s life. First, Never yell in a hospital, the Doctors really don’t like that. Second, live life to the fullest because you never know when it’ll stop. Most importantly, in all situations God has everything under control, even if it doesn’t appear that way. You must learn to put your trust in God. I trust God now more than ever and the inspiration behind all of this is Momo, my 102 year old great grandmother, who in my opinion has a pretty challenging life. Even though Momo is crippled and quite old, she still shines with the beauty of God in her.