Grandpa...

[mommydama]

It is the Eve of Christmas Eve and I am sad. I am sad because my grandparents and aunt were supposed to come tomorrow and stay through Christmas Day. But tonight my aunt called and grandpa is having "episodes" so they are not sure they are coming at all. Grandpa is 86 years old and going very slowly senile. So slowly that I didn't see it coming at all. Dad keeps saying he is getting worse, confused and disoriented, and when I saw them last summer, Grandpa didn't have a clue who we all were except that we were his grandkids. But there were four grandkids with their husbands and nine great-grandkids running around, so I didn't think that was really surprising. He couldn't keep our names straight when I was five, so that didn't seem like a big leap. In fact, at the time, it was kinda sweet. He kept pointing out a little person and asking the nearest grown-up, "now who is that cutie? What's her name? Who does she belong too?" over and over again. And then he would sigh and smile and say, "I can't keep you all straight, but I know you're all mine." Aunt Jan said tonight that if they do come tomorrow it will only be for an hour or two, and they need to be back to her house before the evening (she lives about 2.5 hrs away) because he gets totally confused at night. She said not to be surprised if he doesn't even know we are "his" anymore. I feel like I'm slowly losing my grandpa. I already lost one to Alzheimer's. My other grandpa lives in a silent, blank world in a nursing home. He is completely gone now. I feel so sad that I'm losing my other grandpa this way too. Sometimes I think it would be easier if they would just die, with all their faculties intact, with clear eyes and strong souls instead of slowly fading into invisiblility. I miss my grandpa and he's not even gone yet. I miss his "hohoho" laugh and his exclamations of "goody-goody gumdrops!" I even miss his dark temper. He is like a kid again, afraid to let my grandma out of his sight. I want to see them tomorrow so badly and yet I'm afraid too. Will there be any of grandpa left?

Comments

[justamy.livejournal.com]

the answer is yes.
your grandpa will still have that round belly and that special voice and jolly cheeks, long after he's stopped eating, singing, and smiling. and as trite as it sounds now, thats because you will never forget them. and neither will any of us who were lucky enough to know him.

i've lost all my grandparents...two before i knew them, and two long after i came to love them in very different ways.

and i know what you mean about losing them before they lose themselves.

my grandma bonnie was tall, regal, stoic, and strong. she never left the house without lipstick and hose and a spritz of white shoulders. she was, even at the old age i got to know her (she was already 66 and had 12 grandkids and 4 great grandkids when i was born), the greatest model of grace i ever knew. i'll always remember the christmas afternoon my dad and i drove her home. it was when things first started going "queer" as valancy's clan would say. dad had given her a check to pay a bill and she hadn't done it and had had some utility shut off. dad had fixed it and all was well, but he asked her on the drive what had happened...why hadn't she paid the bill. and she started to cry...my stoic grandma bonnie...and said she couldn't remember him giving her a check. she said she couldn't remember anything anymore. and that was the beginning of it. within a month we were selling her house, giving away her dog, and moving her into a nursing home. by the end of the year she knew no one but my mother and i. by the summer, she had lost that. and she lived for three more years inside that body without a brain. eventually, even the fear and sadness left her eyes. she was wearing sweatsuits, dribbling her liquid diet, and didn't even own a lipstick or a perfume bottle. we prayed for the day she could leave. it hurt madly the day she died, but it truly was a wonderful day. i'll never forget seeing her in the casket when we viewed it before the funeral. she was gorgeous, dama. she was wearing her best red dress, her hair was fixed just like it's supposed to be, she had on her lipstick, and a serene smile. and i burst into tears. mom held me as we stared at her and i said to mom, thats the way she really was. it was so comforting to know, she was up there, being herself instead of that vegetable she lived inside of for almost four years. it truly was a glorious day.

on the other hand, my grandma agnes and i had a very different relationship. i saw her, but rarely alone....not much just me and grandma time. she wasn't particularly trustworthy. but man was she fun! she snuck chocolates out of parties in napkins in her purse. she drank beer from those tall cans and giggled. she also never left the house without lipstick, but hers was the color of a red crayon, and her hair as black as coal and her shoes pointy, heeled and two sizes too small, so she would look daintier. she gave us fritos for dinner. she never balanced her own checkbook, or followed her diabetic diet. life was much too short for that sort of thing. in her last years, when she couldn't drive, i took her on all her errands. we talked endlessly and she shared stories that shocked me. two days before she died, i had lunch with her at the nursing home (where she only lived for a couple of weeks, if that). the nurses brought her sugar cookies and turned their heads when she ate only the cookies, and ignored her vegetable soup. we learned after she died that her last couple of days, she ate nothing but cookies and black coffee with real sugar. they knew she was going, she knew she was going, it didn't matter anymore. she told me a joke, kissed me and said goodbye with a smile. and that was the last time i saw her. she died doing just what she wanted to do, knowing all of us, and knowing we loved her. i think she also knew that we, especially my dad, had forgiven her for everything. it was such a different, but equally releasing death than grandma bonnie's. and i really think that she was luckier.

[justamy.livejournal.com]

it wouldn't let me post the whole comment earlier....said it was too long. so here is the end.

but death doesn't really pay attention to luck, does it? the thing i cling to is that grandma bonnie knew her place with god before she lost her mind. i feel that after the fear and sadness was gone, even inside that lifeless but living body, god was comforting her and giving her the peace that comes with death. and you know that the same is true with your grandpa.
grandma agnes had a lot of peace to make before she went. god let her keep her faculties right up to the end to give her every last chance. and i believe she took it.

this really turned into a post about me, and i am sorry for that. but thank you for letting me say it, because i miss my grandmas this time of year.

my point was and is, though, that yes, there will be grandpa left. and you should relish it, even if its just for an hour. let him kiss you and the babies even if he doesn't know you. you will know him, and remember him, in all of the parts of his life, and i am finding, as the years pass, that that is whats important about losing your older family members....remembering them...even the end...and relishing the way god has worked in their lives and yours through them.

i love you, dama, and all of the people who helped create you and raise you. please hug your grandpa for me.