“It’s hotter than H out here”, my grandma said as she sat on the bench and fanned herself.
My sister and I stood close by sipping our juice boxes, watching as a garter snake slithered out of the corner, casually making its way across the cool cement of the garage floor. My grandma shrieked, and we looked over in surprise. She had always projected a calm demeanor, never one to get overly excited about something. Her eyes were wide and fearful behind her glasses, and my sister and I scurried to the corner, screaming in terror.
She grabbed the broom that my dad used to sweep the garage and began whacking the floor like a woman possessed. It was only a short time before it became very evident that the snake had lost this battle, my grandma leaning over the broom handle breathing heavily.
My sister and I looked at each other and after a moment of silence, I said:
“Um, I think it’s dead?”
Grandma nodded her head, still catching her breath. She quietly swept away what remained of the snake, leaned the broom against the wall, and closed the garage door.
“Let’s go back inside”, she said.
We followed behind her, my sister and I continuing to sneak glances at each other, suppressing giggles as we made our way back into the house.
My Grandma Cora was a steady presence throughout our childhood. She and my Grandma Gloria took turns watching my sister and me during the week while our parents were at work.
“Fight nice!”, she would say when we argued, Julie sucking her lips and making an angry fish face at me while we dodged each other’s punches and pulled on one another’s ponytails.
Grandma Cora was steadfast in her routine, consistently arriving a few minutes before our mom left for work, accompanied by a bag full of books, knitting, and cross-stitching. In the afternoons, she’d make us egg salad sandwiches, and we’d join her on the couch to watch her soap operas – All My Children, General Hospital, or Days of Our Lives. When we started asking too many questions, she’d hand us some cross-stitching to keep us occupied, our tongues stuck out in concentration as we poked at the light blue patterns on white fabric. After a few minutes, we’d give up in frustration, abandoning our work to go play outside while she finished up her shows.
It was such a beautiful and comforting time in life, a time I often think back on and wish I could return to if only just to visit. As a young kid, I never thought much about what life would be like without grandma in it.
In retrospect, there was so much I failed to ask. Who was Cora? How did she and grandpa meet? What was it like raising seven children? Did she ever think about going back to nursing school? Did she even want to be a nurse? Did she have hopes, dreams, and ambitions outside of her roles as wife, mother, grandmother, and even great-grandmother?
But time, as they say, is a thief. Before these questions formed in my own mind, Alzheimer’s slowly stole hers.
It was easy to miss at first. She didn’t contribute as much to conversations, forgot a name here and there, missed an important detail. But then the gaps became more obvious. She and my mom spoke on the phone almost daily. During one of their conversations, my mom asked her to make her famous potato salad for an upcoming family gathering.
“Of course, of course”, she responded enthusiastically.
A few minutes later, the phone rang again, and my mom answered.
“Say dear, what’s the recipe for that potato salad?”, my grandma asked.
My mom stared at the phone perplexed. Grandma had been making this potato salad from memory for years. This was the first of many signs that something was seriously wrong.
She started to misplace her glasses often, would forget to pay bills or balance the checkbook, and started referring to most people as “dear” as she struggled to recall names. She would leave the house randomly, taking walks around town with no destination in mind.
Our phone would ring with calls from friends or family:
“Spotted Cora walking around the lake again. I picked her up and dropped her off at home but thought you should know.”
It was comforting to know she had people looking out for her but also slightly concerning that she was hopping into vehicles with people who likely felt like strangers to her. Eventually, it became bad enough that my mom and her siblings started having discussions with grandpa about putting her in a nursing home, where she could receive the level of care required as the disease continued to progress.
But grandma resisted the transition, clinging to what remained of her independence. My mom and aunt accompanied grandma as they attempted to settle her in at a local nursing home close to my grandparent’s house in town. As they lingered in the parking lot discussing next steps, the alarms began to ring, and grandma came flying out the back door an aide following close behind, fire flaring in her eyes as she made her way towards home on foot. My grandpa, ever the jokester, leaned on the car and looked over at my mom and aunt and with a slight chuckle said:
“Woo! One flew over the cuckoo’s nest…”
“So much for those bad knees”, my mom and aunt replied.
They jumped into the car and made their way back to my grandparents' house where grandma sat on their front porch, with the aide beside her, and her chin raised in defiance.
Eventually, she settled into a place the next town over that was able to cater specifically to Alzheimer’s patients. I was now a young adult and tried my best to visit, but it was a struggle. My grandma believed herself to be young again, often asking to return to her childhood home and referring to my grandpa as her cousin. She would look at me in confusion, politely offering me a spot on the love seat covered in flowered upholstery, while she paged through coffee table books and commented on how nice the pictures were. I’d look around at the residents she shared the home with - some sleeping in wheelchairs with their heads resting on their chest, others walking around speaking nonsensically or stopping to absentmindedly stare at the walls. I felt like I was witnessing my grandma’s future and wanted to cry.
It scares me imagining what it must be like to be trapped inside a mind that no longer feels reliable, grasping onto fistfuls of memories that slowly trickle away like grains of sand.
“They say it skips a generation”, my mom often tells me.
I don’t know if this is true or if it’s just something we repeat to comfort ourselves. I suppress thoughts of what it would feel like to have to accept that my mom doesn’t remember me, and I cling to that statement as if it were fact. But I do wonder if it will be me someday, staring into the faces of people I love with no recollection of what they meant to me, connections between the networks of neurons in my brain slowly breaking down and quietly dying.
***
I remember the last time my grandma remembered me. It was a Friday afternoon, and some of my aunts and uncles were in town. Grandpa picked up Grandma from the nursing home, and mom invited everyone to her house for tacos. As we finished up and made to leave, we lingered outside checking out my recent vehicle purchase – a light blue Chevy Cruze. Grandma and I hung back while everyone inspected the new ride. Suddenly, she gripped my arm, looked over at me and said, “Oh Ria! It’s you. That’s your car!” Her eyes lit up with excitement, and I paused, yearning for her to say more.
But like a loon on the water the memory lingered only a moment before disappearing beneath the surface. She lightly patted my arm and looked away in confusion, another memory swirling into the abyss. I swallowed past the lump in my throat and whispered back, “Yeah grandma, it’s me”.
Ultimately, Alzheimer’s is not a disease that can be bargained with; those who suffer with Alzheimer’s have no control over which memories they get to keep, and which ones will disappear. But experiencing the disease through a loved one is a valuable reminder to ask the important questions while memories remain, a reminder that “one day” can quickly turn into tomorrow, and you find that you’ve simply run out of time.
Perhaps there isn’t enough time to ask all the questions, but the answers will be important for those who come next. And while some of us may forget, to those who still remember, those memories matter.
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