My grandmother is 74 years old. She has recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. By the time she was diagnosed, she was already in mid-stage. Two weeks later, with the most aggressive form of Alzheimer's, she is already in the late stages. Everyone tells me that this is harder on the family, than it is on those that have the disease. Let me just state, this disease sucks. No longer is my grandmother the good, beautiful, spry, loving grandmother I grew up with. Now, shes distant, mean, sleepy, and uncomfortable all the time. Not how you want to see a loved one. Not how I want to remember my grandmother.
The purpose of this is to remember the good, and try not to dwell on the bad. To remember stories that made me cry, laugh, and feel her love a thousand times over, because now its so few and far in between. So... Here is one of my favorite stories.
When I was little my grandmother would cook food just for me. There is a famous story that is told whenever my family gets together, I was about 4 or 5 and it was Thanksgiving. I asked my Grandmother what we were having for dinner and she named off everything. I mean everything. As a child, our holidays were so big, we had turkey AND ham, we had every vegetable you could think of, we had enough food to feed a third world country. Every. Single. Holiday. but this particular Thanksgiving my grandmother didn't make "macaroni-and-a-cheese". I cried tears of sadness, I'm pretty sure I didn't throw a fit, but I cried... and my grandmother made "macaroni-and-a-cheese" for that Thanksgiving, every holiday thereafter, and every time I came home for a visit from college. It was love. She knew that her mac-and-cheese was truly the greatest, and she made it for me simply because I asked, and she loved me. She sent me home with 12 gallons of mac-and-cheese after my first semester in college in Tennessee. She lived in Michigan at the time, and she "didn't want me crying over missing her or her cooking" as she put it... She was simply the best.
Now... Now my Grandmother won't eat. Now my grandmother can't remember the story. Now, my grandmother can't remember my name half the time. Now my grandmother is convinced that I have a baby hiding somewhere. Now my grandmother needs help showering, eating, going to the bathroom, taking her medicine and even walking.
I'm mainly writing a blog because in college I learned that I processed things and handled things better when I wrote things out. To be completely and perfectly honest, I am not taking this well. I am not handling this well. I truly hope that all of this is harder on us than it is her. This.. this...this is by far the hardest thing I have ever had to watch someone go through. Maybe my experience will help someone else. Maybe it will help me process this. Maybe I can look back at this and see that it was in someway worth it,because God's plans are bigger, better, and greater than mine.
