Full Donor ListMy grandmother was diagnosed with dementia in 2002, only a year after her husband died of lung cancer.
I moved in with her for a few months to help her around the house, cook her meals, help with her meds- but at the time I was only 22, and while I knew what the disease would do to her, I don't think I realized how hard it would be to watch her progress.
I only stayed with her for maybe 6 months (she eventually went into Assisted Living), but in those months I saw so much of myself in her. We spent so many nights in the recliner chairs she and my grandfather shared, drinking wine, watching movies- and she would always fall asleep in the chair and mumble to herself. I always wondered what she was dreaming about.
She doesn't have many words left now, just key phrases that I've heard her say over and over again throughout life. "He's a good guy" is one of her favorites. She always loved the boys. Even a few months ago when I was visiting, she was walking down the hall with her (very cute) physical therapist, and she winked at my mom and I was she put her hand on his butt.
I wonder even more now what goes on in her head. She tries so hard to tell us stories, but the words fall off into her mumbles and her eyes lose ours and she starts to cry. I feel like there must be times when she knows what is happening to her.
She doesn't know my name anymore, but every time she sees me or hears her voice, her eyes light up. Sometimes she just stares at me with these eyes that long for earlier times. She occasionally reaches up and holds my face in her hand, rubbing my cheek until she starts to cry.
This woman is the light of my life. She's a fighter- and fresh to the very end. She still taps her foot to the beat of Senatra, and while she doesn't sing along anymore, music sends her to such a special place. I can still hear her singing Christmas carols in her high vibrato, while I plucked along beside her on the piano.
I am forever grateful for the bond between my gram and I. She has shown me strength, courage, sweetness, love, fear, vulnerability- and most importantly, her firecracker charisma has always brought me to laughing tears.
To my gram:
In the words of Roger Whittaker, "You are beautiful, and I have loved you dearly, more dearly than the spoken word can tell."
Guest Book
Sign the Guest Book
