It Was Inevitable

Got to see my grandmother this weekend. I have two grandparents still living (out of a total, actually, of six - I had two step-grandparents who have now passed on). The two who are left - my dad's mother and my mom's father - have both been healthy as long as I could remember. It seems nothing could possibly knock them down, not diabetes ("Mother," as we call her, fights the blood sugar disorder), not colon or prostate cancer (Granddaddy), not hard times or the divorces of their children or the destruction of the houses they grew up in by fire or even outliving a total of five children between them.

Until now. I think I had written before about my grandfather's failing health. The prostate cancer he fought well - but it left him with a suppressed immune system, and he wound up with a staph infection that sapped his energy, depleted his will to fight and brought to the surface what had long been hidden - a probable case of Alzheimer's.

Mother has been fighting Alzheimer's for a few years now, and her deterioration has been much slower than I would have expected. She was merely forgetful at first, then forgetful and suspicious (common in early Alzheimer's), then forgetful, suspicious and prone to do things out of order or in an odd way (for example, boiling eggs without any water or trying to prune a tree in the middle winter, using kitchen scissors).

Through it all, though, she's never confused me for anyone else, even on the phone - when it must be more difficult to keep things straight.

Until this visit. She did pretty good, but toward the end of my visit, turned to my dad and asked, "How's little Becky?"

Dad said, "Why don't you ask her yourself?"

She instantly realized her mistake, confessing to me with a giggle, "I thought you were your mother." It's true as I've gotten older I've resembled my mother more and more - as a kid, I was nothing like her and everything like my dad. But after two hours of my having been there, she not only forgot I was there, she mixed me up.

I have to wonder how much longer she will do this sort of slow-motion free-fall. It would almost be easier to watch if it was quicker... if it wasn't so much like pouring molasses from a bowl into a bottle.

I take comfort in knowing she is still reasonably lucid, and knows me most of the time. And I'm glad I went to see her... because I fear it won't be long before she really won't know me at all. That is the day I dread most.