Grandma

Everyday I watch as my great-grandmother’s mind is attacked by the virulent disease that is Alzheimer’s, knowing each day that I’ve lost a little more of the woman that raised me. When I was younger my great-grandmother, Rogelia, was without a doubt the back bone and authoritative figure in the family. If anyone ever had a dilemma that seemed unsolvable, she was there, ready with her plan of action. She always had anecdotes from her childhood, a lesson in every story.
When she first started to betoken signs that her mind may be failing her, we all made excuses “ It’s just old age” or “ Everyone forgets to turn off the water every now and then.” No one wanted to face the facts, no one wanted to look into the eyes of reality and see that the head of family was on the path to becoming a dotard. Although we all yearned to run from the truth we all knew it would catch up with us and sooner or later it would become blatantly obvious that Rogelia would not be able to take care of herself.
In the beginning, when the disease had only begun to disassemble her mind it was easy to ignore everything that was happening, she would only repeat herself and perhaps forget to lock the door . She was still able to cook as she always had and sew the curtains and clothes with beautiful detail. I hadn’t seen the depth of the disease until about one year ago. The disease had begun to demolish her procedural memory and she could no longer perform the simple operations that I had come to associate with my great-grandmother. When I walked into her house much like I always had I expected to be embraced by the rich smells of cooking sweet ham, plump beans and soft rice but I was greeted not by the sweet smells of familiarity but by silence and the harsh smell of Clorox.
My great-grandmother was not in the kitchen cooking or in the family room sewing, she was in the living room sitting on the couch, she looked shriveled and lost. The entire house had been scrubbed clean by my grandparents, I felt as if they had washed away her essence, everything that had been my great-grandmother. I positioned myself on the couch nervously, scared to disturb her, she looked past me and addressed me as if I were her granddaughter Naomi, I smiled, and embraced her knowing that if I corrected her it would only confuse her more. I asked her to tell me about her childhood, her stories had all clashed together becoming an inextricable mass of memories. Even though I knew that her narrative was in fact a fusion of her entire life, she seemed to be happy to have someone to talk to and I was happy to listen. For a short time I ignored what was real and what wasn’t, I just listened and imagined that I was child again focusing on my great-grandmother’s voice over the noise of the sewing machine.