Grandpas are men who you look up to. They always have your back and would do anything for you. Well, that’s exactly what my Grandpa would do for me. I know this because he displayed it during the time when his wife had Alzheimer’s.
It seems like such a long time ago when my Grandma got the call. It was like a warning bell, as if saying, “You’ve got seven years to live. You’ll try to make the most of it, but mostly, you and everyone else will be miserable.” It was extremely hard to watch my Grandma go. At first she would forget parts of a story she had told my cousins and I dozens of times, but eventually, those tiny mishaps turned into forgetting where she was, how to spell the word “Saturday,” and eventually, who her husband of fifty-three years was.
My Grandpa was a trooper, among other things. He would lose sleep over her because she’d get up in the middle of the night to do the oddest things. I know he suffered immense emotional heartbreak that he can never regain. I see pictures of him before Grandma’s diagnosis, and then after. The difference is painful to witness.
My Grandma died after about eleven months of staying in an amazing nursing home for memory-ill patients. Everyday my Grandpa would walk the few miles, past the dam and the Mississippi River, to visit her.
Visiting her in the nursing home was agonizing. She didn’t remember who we were by that point, and for her children—my aunt, uncles and dad—they took it in different ways. My uncles were silent till her funeral; my aunt wouldn’t stop crying. I just looked forward to her smile, which I could always count on.
The last time I saw her at the nursing home was when she looked at me and smiled.
She died on November 23rd, 2010, two days before Thanksgiving. Her funeral was two days after that. I saw my Grandpa cry, as well as my uncles. It was the most devastating sight I’ve ever encountered, and I hope nothing will ever top that. When you see the strongest person you know break down, it changes you. I shed little tears because for years I’ve been suffering, watching my Grandma be tortured with this insidious disease, until that day, when she was released from the agony. She was finally in peace.
Every time I see my Grandpa I hug him. He’s so inspirational to me I can’t express it enough. I describe him as an amazing man with puffy gray-white hair, kind blue eyes and a dear smile. No, he’s not a war hero, but he’s endured enough traumatic events back home to make a veteran intimidated. I love him to the ends of the earth.