Some Thoughts on a Rainy Afternoon
I recently returned from Quebec after spending some time with my grandmother. For the past few years, her eyesight, and memory have been deteriorating. It's not Alzheimers, as they ran all the tests for it, and she passed. However, my mother's side of the family has somewhat of a history of Dimentia, another degenerative disease similar to Alzheimers. She gets tested for the on the 25th of July.
The two weeks I spent with her frustrated me a great deal. Because her short term memory is in such a fragile state, I'd have to repeat myself many times so as not to confuse her. I'd have to find things that she put somewhere and forgot about. And with grandma's eyesight so bad, I had to describe many things to her in her own house. But that's not what frustrated me about the trip.
What was frustrating was her attitude. When she couldn't find something, she'd say that it was probably her time to go, and that she was stupid. It's very difficult to hear these things from a woman as strong as Grandma Julie; a woman who lived through the depression as a young girl, who was a communications worker in the 2nd World War, who raised 3 kids so well that her parenting skills were handed down to my mother and uncle. Hearing this woman, who taught me how to play cards, who looked after me when I was 6, who sings on the phone on people's birthdays say that she's stupid was incredibly painful.
She'll be alright though for now. Grandma's a fighter, and nothing that they find in those tests will keep her from dialing my number and starting to sing Happy Birthday when I turn 19. And with luck, hopefully again when I turn 20, and 25, and 30.
Sorry that this post is so serious, but I needed to get it off of my chest.
The two weeks I spent with her frustrated me a great deal. Because her short term memory is in such a fragile state, I'd have to repeat myself many times so as not to confuse her. I'd have to find things that she put somewhere and forgot about. And with grandma's eyesight so bad, I had to describe many things to her in her own house. But that's not what frustrated me about the trip.
What was frustrating was her attitude. When she couldn't find something, she'd say that it was probably her time to go, and that she was stupid. It's very difficult to hear these things from a woman as strong as Grandma Julie; a woman who lived through the depression as a young girl, who was a communications worker in the 2nd World War, who raised 3 kids so well that her parenting skills were handed down to my mother and uncle. Hearing this woman, who taught me how to play cards, who looked after me when I was 6, who sings on the phone on people's birthdays say that she's stupid was incredibly painful.
She'll be alright though for now. Grandma's a fighter, and nothing that they find in those tests will keep her from dialing my number and starting to sing Happy Birthday when I turn 19. And with luck, hopefully again when I turn 20, and 25, and 30.
Sorry that this post is so serious, but I needed to get it off of my chest.