The Great Ones

You might be surprised but very few people in this country say they have significant contact with someone on a personal level that is elderly. I think that is a travesty. Recently, my fiercely independent Grandma Bea was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Dementia. To watch her fold up is breath taking.

When I say fold up, it's a symbolical but also a physical condition that I have been witnessessing. My Gramz who was quick to laugh is less willing to do so. This woman who would descend into the kitchen and come out with culinary masterpieces is gone. This woman would could go to the downtown mall for six or nine hours and just shop is tired after one hour. Her physical body is folding up. She shrugs in her chair and shuffles and she walks. She is always sighing and blowing air from her lungs. She often is closing her eyes. She is not asleep. It's as though she's closing her eyes in hopes nothing will change and no one will tell her just one more thing to the long list of things she doesn't want to know. Eighty Nine. I wish with all my heart, I would have half the style and coolness of my Grandmother. I wish she could understand that life isn't over. That she has so much fun to be had. The fun will be at a little bit slower pace and it might be different fun than she used to but she can still have fun.

I used to swing from ropes tied onto trees out into the river. I would swing as high and I could go and let go and the ultimate pinnacle of height and excitement. Well guess what? I can't do that anymore. Their are parasites in the river, my upper body strength is gone and who would be watching my two little lovelies while I was out for an hour playing trapeze. We ALL give up stuff we used to do. It's called passages of time. Right now, for Gram it is so so hard and there is a grieving process that must be allowed to take place. But I hope she can find some friends and fun and grasp the knowledge that she is down but not out. I love my Grammie. I wish her all the best in whole world and I know she'll find her way,