Miss you, yet you're here..

Last year was a wirl wind year in our family for our Grandma(my Dad's mum).

Two years ago we started getting phone calls from Grandma's neighbours and friends, courtesy calls to let us know she had been wondering the streets at strange hours and acting a bit odd. 

I remember taking a call directly myself, while house sitting for mum and dad at 7mths pregnant.  It was from a lady who lived down the street from Grandma, concerned that no one had seen her or been able to get her to answer her door.  As I drove the 15min drive with the spare keys to her house, my stomach was doing backflips, I was having visions of discovering her passed away.  Thankfully, she was just pottering around in her back garden!  I didn't want to embarras her, so made no mention of the real reason I'd shown up unannounced, but it mattered not, because she was so happy for the unexpected company ;)

I had asked Tyler to come with me on this check up, so I was trying to shoe him away as she led me into her kitchen for a cup of tea(I thought a quick cuppa and we'd be on our way with her non the wiser).

As it turned out, faite had us be there that time.  Tyler was out on the street, and had he not been there to see a tall truck rip out Grandma's power lines as it drove into the street, I really shudder to think what she would have done.  Grandma and I heard the noise, but it was day time, so we didn't immediatley notice the power outage.  Tyler was brilliant, he came inside having already taken down the truck details and we set to work calling for help to get the ower fixed(lucky for Tyler being dilligent with the details, we got reimbursed by the truck company for repair costs). 

As we waited for an electrician, Grandma was obviously very focused on my baby belly, and a lot of those hours(yep, waited into the dark cold night before we got help!) was spent telling me stories of her own pregnancies.  Bless that truck and the trouble it caused, for it lead me to hear all these stories! 

The more Grandma recalled, the more I realised I was similar in many aspects.  She too had had "womens troubles" that had led her to have to undergo an operation to help clean her out and freshin up her womb, something I've had done twice since my miscarriage.  She also had near miscarriage and held great fear of loosing her baby(she didn't mention whether this was my Dad or my aunt).  She even touched a bit on what my Papa was like as a new Daddy, something that was extra special because he died when I was young and I only know him through stories.

When Jack was born, she was the person I was most excited to introduce him to, and it burst my heart with pride when Dad brought her to meet him.

I started taking Jack to visit at Grandma's house, on the weekends with mum and dad, and again I was triggering memories for her.  She would watch him suckling at the breast and exclaim "Isn't it lovely?!" and sometimes say little things about her own breastfeeding journey, how she adored it.

Last year Grandma made transition into a nursing home.  Turns out, those well meaning friends and neighbours had been keeping her secret of her muddled ways for a decade. 

A whole decade!  How could we not know???

But as we learnt, sufferers of dementia are pretty good at covering their tracks, 'til they loose more control.

She doesn't have that control anymore, she makes no excuse for her strange ways, because she no longer realises she does them.

It's not just the memories of what's happened that she looses, but even memory of speech and the order it all goes in.  Often her sentences are mixed to the point we really struggle to know what it is she's trying to express.

She now reminds me of my Nanna, her mum, who was lucky enough to live til 100yrs old(Grandma is currently 91yo)

Nanna was able bodied and able minded right up til about a month before her 100th birthday(6th of june), then she suffered a stroke.  This stroke didn't ground her much and she was able to stay home for a bit longer, she lived with Grandma.  Then she suffered another stroke which placed her in hospital.  This time she had suffered badly and her speech was gone.

This is where I see Grandma in her..... One visit to the hospital, our family was waiting outside for the start of visiting hours. I was 8yrs old.  I needed to go to the toilet and mum said I could go in to use the toilet but must come straight back out.  I ignored mum, I'd been bursting to see Nanna, had just made a wish in the hospitals wishing well, and was sure she was going to be up for a chat and ready to come home with us, so I went into her room.

To this day, 20yrs on, the image of her laying in that bed is still etched in my head.  Nanna had long blondish white hair and she always wore it in a plated bun, but here she was with it down and messily falling over her shoulders, with a hot pink ribbon tied as a headband.

I grabbed her hand but it layed limp in mine.  I asked her if it was ok I snuck in, she stared at me blankly.

A wave of fear came over me.  Was I in the right room?  Should I be here?  She looked like my Nanna, but Nanna was not there.

This is how I feel with Grandma.

She looks like my Grandma.  But Grandma as we know her, is already gone.

We grieve her, yet she stands before us.

Dementia is a cruel horrible disease.

I'm thinking lots of Grandma lately.  Jack is exhibiting signs of a lazy eye.  As my Dad suffered a severe lazy eye right through his childhood, 'til surgery helped as an adult, I thought straight away of Grandma.  It's her perspective as the mother that I would love to hear right now, I know I can talk to Dad when things get more serious(about being the person who suffered it and the inevitable bullying that went along with being a bit different).  The trouble is, the brain I want to pick, has already began shutting down.  Just when I was starting to feel more connected with my Grandma, her brain is disconnecting.
I miss her, yet she's here, it is a strange feeling.  We mourn her, yet she hasn't passed.
Beautifully, each visit with her, she remembers Jack!  She is recognising me less and less(I pretend not to notice she hugs me hello as her face is searching me to work out who I am), but she always knows "the little one"!  "He's just like the little boy in my room" she says, yes he sure is, because that is his photo ;)  She talks of him often, my aunty tells my dad, which warms my heart.  Her wondering who I am doesn;t matter to me as much, when I know that her visits with Jack cheer her so much, and are actually creating and sticking new little happy memories.
But I miss her.....even when I'm looking right at her.