Minds Lost

Walking down the hallway of shiny linoleum tiles, I couldn't help but notice the smell of urine, decay, and Clorox.  There were sounds of machines beeping out life function statistics and moans and groans of those unable to be up and about.  I couldn't get to my grandmother's room quickly enough. Fast enough that the smells wouldn't permeate my nose and before the feelings of degeneration settled in my thoughts.

There she was sitting in her wheel chair staring blankly at the floor of her room.  I'm not sure where her mind was at that moment.  Was it here...right now...today?  Was it back with my grandfather decades earlier happy on the farm?  Or was she further away still, back with her family as a child.  I stood there quietly in the doorway for a moment, considering how this woman who could slip cover everything that would stand still, cook Chinese cuisine, garden, crochet, and flock her own Christmas tree had been reduced to this sad state.

Damn you Alzheimer's.

She looked up to see me and smiled. Not so much a smile of recognition, just a smile of gratitude for a break in a monotonous day. I drew a deep breath in and summoned every cheerful bone in my body. I told her how happy I was to see her and that it was manicure day. This is how I passed time with what was left of my grandmother. I would bring things to do her nails and I would talk to her while I softly filed her nail tips. Depending on where she was in her mind, she would talk back sometimes.

The memory of a person with Alzheimer's can be compared to an onion. Over time the layers are peeled away with where they are and what they are familiar with. Outermost layer being current day and time, unraveling decades with each layer, until you get to the core where there is very little...perhaps like when we were tiny infants incapable of communication and merely observers of life's activities. She did not speak at all the last couple of years.

I picked up her right hand and studied the effects of a woman who had used them diligently in her lifetime. The skin no longer tight and smooth. There were age spots, big blue veins, and arthritic enlarged joints. Hands never lie. The meals she had cooked, the gardens she planted, all the crocheted afghans, and houses she had made beautiful, welcoming homes were all obvious.

She patted me on my arm and said, "Honey, it's so very sweet of you to come and do this for me." I was delighted she was actually present and spoke, and paused my work to smile and soak it up. Then she continued, "cause you don't even know me." I had become a stranger. No longer in her inner circle. I told her that she might not know me, but I knew her pretty well.