If there is one person who has influenced me more than anyone, it would have to be my grandpa, Vern Trueblood.  Growing up, he was always the fun old man who prayed forever before meals.  Our morning devotions weren't a ten minute ordeal; they were more like a two hour event.  And if you had a prayer request it would go on a post-it-note and into his collection of things to pray about each and every day.   My grandfather was my hero; he was the strongest, funniest, and most honorable person I knew.  To me he was invincible, he was always smiling, doing the right thing, helping people, but above and beyond all those, he was always serving and loving his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  

            I was convinced that nothing could affect him; his attitude was always optimistic.  Even bad news never seemed to rattle him; he saw it as an opportunity to share God's hope.  So when my lively grandfather was diagnosed with Parkinson's, a degenerative disorder of the nervous system, I felt I had no reason to be concerned.  Of course it wasn't going to change him and by no means was it going to damage him.  But I could not have been farther from the truth.

            At first it was little signs of the horrid disease setting in, hands shaking and worsened posture.  But as the years rolled by the signs turned into nightmares.  Instead of using his words wisely he would blurt out swear words when he would get frustrated.  The pain he experienced was more than I can imagine, and his eyes, which used to be filled with life, were now lifeless.  The number of times I heard him say he was dying is more than I can count.  It was hard for me to remember him as the man I knew he truly was when he couldn't even lift a spoon to his fragile face.

            Then my grandfather would do something that would bring all those memories rushing back, and I would see glimpses of the real him.  If I could chose one single moment with my grandfather I would chose the day I spent with him at the hospital when we all thought he was on his deathbed.  He just had surgery and had some bad reaction to the anesthetics which caused him to hallucinate and say absurd things.  The pain in his cramped up legs was more than he could bare and he began to scream at every person within sight.  After more than an hour of trying over and over again to relieve my helpless grandfather of this awful agony I finally whispered in his ear, "Grandpa, why don't you pray about it?"  I honestly didn't think he would be able to relax enough to even think straight, but the next few moments I had with my grandfather are what I will remember him as.  The pain didn't go away and his body didn't relax, but he stopped hollering and with a strong and confident voice, he prayed.  Immediately tears started to roll down my face.  The last words my grandpa said to me that day were, "be a good Christian girl," and I intend to do exactly that by following his example.