She sits in her chair staring out the window, back to the door, hunched forward. I find her this way every time I visit. The nurse I pass in the hall advises me that she is "feeling blue". My mother and I wait in the doorway and send in my son first, holding her cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese, and watch as he runs to her and she turns and smiles at him. While all of the dots have stopped connecting for her, she knows she's happy to see him. She knows he is the same little boy she has pictures of on her windowsill. She does not remember his name.
This visit marked a significant decline in my grandmother. While what happened yesterday or five years ago has been out of her mental grasp for sometime, she has also begun to forget the past almost completely. She turned to my mother and said "My husband has passed away, right?" We both remained straight faced and my mother said yes, in 1991. She did not remember the details of his open heart surgery in 1976, or our time spent at Bakers Acres campground with the Schernes and the Ingrams. These are all things that, very recently, we were able to talk about.
Physically she did not seem great either, her ankles were very swollen and when we suggested she might need to be cleaned up before we took her upstairs, she was adamant that she did not, despite the fact that our noses told us other wise. I looked in her drawers (something that still feels strange, just going through her things) for a brush to tidy up her hair and when I couldn't locate one she informed me that people were stealing her things. They have long arms around here she announced. I told her I'd buy here a new one but that didn't seem to make her very happy.
Alzheimer's is so very cruel, it takes and takes until there's nothing left. I worry about what it will look like for her at the end, will she die before she forgets everything? Will she know who I am at the end? She is increasingly a stranger to me that I treat with love and kindness, but have a hard time finding things to talk with her about. I love her just the same, but I ache to have the old her back.
