This post is written by my niece.
Being the youngest grandchild has its pros and cons. Exclusive snuggling rights (that is, until the great-grandkids started coming), extra candy, free ice cream, and permission to cheat (ahem, “be helped”) on those tough family games. The downsides I usually complain about are the material ones—that the older kids got more years of presents, better trips, and so on. No one is paying for my college textbooks or cross-cultural experiences. When it's time for me to have kids, I'm not getting a new stroller from Nana and Papa. I'm not getting anything.
But the worst part is that I missed out on the good memories. It's not all gone. I remember trips and events. I have some mental snapshots from Storyland and Sturbridge Village. Once we checked into a hotel just to use the swimming pool. I didn't get in trouble when I let the dog sleep in my bed. She called me her “little ray of sunshine”. But the memories that I have of my grandmother are experiences—trips and activities and an excessive amount of stuffed animals. They are more like pictures I've seen or stories I've been told more than anything else. I never got to know her, not who she was as a person. I don't remember deep conversations with her. I didn't get to learn from her like everyone else did. Mom says I did but I mean the bigger lessons, the life lessons that I couldn't understand then. I never asked her what it was like to play basketball in college, or how she met Papa, or what it was like to be a stay-at-home missionary. I don't know what she accomplished in her career, her political views, the funniest joke she told or her favorite food.
My grandparents moved into my house while I was in high school. At this point, the early stages of Alzheimer's were starting to show, though it wasn't official yet. My brother and sister were away at school so they missed it—missed it as day by day it became more clear that something was wrong. Missed the blame games and the harsh words and seeing my mom in tears because her own mother accused her of lying straight to her face, and my father wanting so badly to give support to something he could not change. Out of all the things to miss out on, I would have chosen this piece of the story.
But I didn't get to choose. Instead, I am stuck with all the bad memories. Like the time Mom made turkey cutlets and stuffing for my birthday. Nana asked for the delicious chicken recipe. That was so hard for my mother to hear because it was one of Nana's signature meals, and she should know better that it was turkey, not chicken. Mom said that Nana always used to make it for me because it was my favorite. It was so important to her that Nana knew it was turkey. I didn't have the heart to tell my mom that I only had a half a memory of Nana making it one time—I didn't know it was my favorite of her cooking. And I certainly couldn't tell the difference between turkey and chicken.
The bad memories. Like the time Nana tried to make frozen French toast but really put garlic bread in the toaster and almost started a fire. And then ate the blackened pieces with syrup like nothing was wrong. Or the time there was a
family intervention to take the car keys away. Or the time Papa said he was going to get a tape recorder so she could hear how crazy she sounded. Or the time she bleached my tie-dyed t-shirt because she thought it was dirty and apologized that she couldn't get the stains out. Those kinds of memories.
I couldn't tell you exactly why I don't like going to visit my grandmother. Maybe it's because I don't see a point—she hasn't recognized me for awhile and she has no idea if we visit or not. Maybe it's because nursing homes are sad places and I have to realize that soon I could be going through this with my own parents, and eventually putting my family through it. I already feel bad for my future husband because I feel like this, this is asking too much of him. He shouldn't have to go through something like this. I am praying, at 20 years old, to die of cancer before I get this disease.
But honestly, a lot of it is because it brings on the pain that I didn't know her like the rest of my family. I can't sit around the kitchen table or in the family room and talk about how great she was, and that makes me feel more isolated than anything. I guess I should be grateful that I'm spared most of the pain of saying goodbye to her, but I never got the joy of truly saying hello. I hate that I know she did so much for me, and I don't remember any of it. I guess that's one thing she and I have in common now—I don't remember who she used to be either.
