Sometimes, when your grandmother has Alzheimer's, you have a visit that warms your heart and reminds you of all the good memories. You hold her soft, wrinkled hand in yours and you smile at one another over a game of gin rummy and a plate of cookies.
Today was not one of those visits.
I often struggle when writing this blog with attempting to be open and honest and at the same time being respectful of her privacy. I don't know how well I achieve either. Sometimes one negates the other.
Today she was disinterested in the visit, with my mom and my kids and myself. She introduced my mother and I to people with the same wrong name. I was overwhelmed by the smell of the nursing home. I think I was secretly grateful that she was more interested in bingo than her family.
When we exited the diningroom, tables quickly filling up with wheelchairs holding crumpled bodies, some with sweet smiles, others with vacant stares, I stole glances back to my grandmother's table and noted that not once did she look up. She did not seem to notice that we had left.
I am relieved in a sense that her life there is becoming normal to her and she has ceased fighting it, while at the same time I am heart sick that I am losing her to this fucking disease.
No comments:
Post a Comment