When I saw her, she never said my name. Throughout my years with her, she had never addressed me in a manner that gave me any insight she could even recall whom I was…but she didn't need to. It was never necessary because each time I approached her, I saw it in her eyes. I knew that she knew me… in some way. Deep down in her, I meant something- I had to have. I found it in me to learn to love this woman solely on what I saw in her.
Loving another with Alzheimer's disease was one of the most devastating experiences I have ever endured. I was forced to watch my grandmother continue to suffer each day that passed.
My Grandmother was diagnosed about 10 years ago. It started slowly, and then all at once, almost as if it had always been there. I was too young to grasp what was happening when the news first arrived, although, even if I wasn’t, I know I still wouldn’t be able to understand exactly what had happened. It began with upset phone calls in the middle of the night because she couldn't remember what day of the week it was to attend Sunday mass, and ended with restless nights of screaming and crying while she banged on the exit door of the senior living home.
She moved from home to home in order to afford the costly supervision that was required with her case and they seemed to shrink each time she went, but the last home was the one I recall the most. It was awful. Almost like a box of a place, with plain white walls, one TV, and about six doors for patients’ rooms.
I remember a man who I saw every week that I visited my Grandmother in her last home. The man was a former soldier. He looked to be in his late 50’s and almost every time I saw him, I saw his wife. She was a woman about the same age, who spent her life loving the man she had committed her life to, while he loses more and more memory of her as each day passes.
And then there was Beth. Beth was a small old woman, whom I absolutely adored. She seemed to be so sharp — you would have never guessed that she was suffering, but each time I arrived she clutched different book to her chest. She read a different book each week for her last few years of life. I came to discover a type of beauty in this irony. A woman, who lived the same exact daily routine, which she forgets each day, but still manages to clutch a novel with thousands of different endings in it. A novel, which changed for her each time it opened. Maybe that was her escape.
I can vividly recall a certain moment with my Grandmother. It was a Christmas morning. After I hadn't heard her call me by my name for about two years now, I questioned whether or not she knew who I was at all. She looked at me and grabbed my hand while saying, "Mackenzie... nobody really knows nothin" and looked back up. The most accurate words of wisdom I've heard yet.
Loving another with Alzheimer's disease was one of the most devastating experiences I have ever endured. I was forced to watch my grandmother suffer on repeat for the last 10 years of her life.
Living with Alzheimer's is heartbreaking. It steals your ability to love, to appreciate those that have loved you, and to simply live the life we were given.
Living with my grandmother showed me the value of life. These people are given a life, but deprived of the opportunity to live it. Alzheimer's has changed me, and with the possibility of it running in my genes, I've promised myself to live every second until then, as it is my last.
In loving memory of Nana.
