Day 80: She remembers that she loves me...

Alzheimer's is what most of, young people, joke about having... but, my grandmother, she really does suffer from Alzheimer's. I visit her about once a couple of weeks and she's so much fun to be around, due to her Alzheimer's. I know it's pretty sad, but, why not enjoy her condition, while it's there.

My grandmother used to be very active and in control until my grandfather died of Blood Cancer about 15 years ago... Now, she lives alone and deals with her memory loss day to day.

Yesterday, I went by to see her and she was outside feeding a squirrel. I know, how weird... right? Ya, it was pretty weird, but amazing. The squirrel was sitting right at her feet as she handed it a big piece of bread. The squirrel grabbed the bread, nibbled at it, then, dropped it and stood on his back feet, looked up at my grandma, and wiggled his fuzzy tail. I watched this happening from the top of the stairs and couldn't help but laugh at the ugly thing who looked like a rat due to the rain and wet puddles around. So she looked down at it and said, (in Armenian) "That's it, no more, you're not getting sweets today!" The squirrel still looking up at her, sat down and waited. Then my grandma said to me, "Why aren't you coming up? Are you scared of it? I'm just feeding this 'rat'... come on, come in..." So, I slowly walked towards the door of the house, and, surprisingly enough, it didn't run away. I said, "No, I'm not scared of the rat grandma, but it'll run if I come towards it." She replied, "No, don't worry, come in," as she picked the bread back up, tore it to pieces, threw some out to the birds, and gave the squirrel a smaller piece. Then, I watched as the squirrel grabbed the smaller piece of bread, looked back at my grandma, reassuring itself that it wasn't going to get anything sweet today, then, ran down the stairs...

It was so extraordinary and funny to watch all this happen...

As I walked inside her home, still thinking about what had happened, I took off my shoes, and sat down comfortably on the couch. I was there for about an hour and a half, and throughout that period, she asked me if I wanted tea about 22 times, asked what day it was, about 6 times, and told me to eat the apples she had cut about 14 times...

As she asked me the 4th time about what day it was, I just looked at her with a dumbed look on my face...she looked back at me, grinned and said, "What should I do, I forget..." while shrugging her shoulders.

With all the things she forgets during her day, she always recognizes my voice over the phone, remembers my fiance's name, gets extremely excited when I show up at her door, and remembers that she loves me...

Tip of the Day: Visit and spend time with an older person. They bring humbleness into your day and say the wisest things, sometimes.

As we were sitting there, there was a music video on t.v. of a woman singing about her mom and why she had to grow old... my grandma watched it and after it was over said, "It's not in her hands, if it was, she wouldn't have..."

“Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant with the weak and the wrong. Sometime in your life you will have been all of these.”Dr. Robert H. Goddard