Her hands are trembling.
This is not an uncommon thing, at
least, not anymore. Not since last Christmas. The doctor’s visit. The diagnosis
of Lewy body dementia. To see them shake in this manner is like listening to
the sound of some unknown drum—sometimes sporadic, but most oftentimes
ceaseless. Sometimes, she can barely control them.
But I know that a part of her is
still there.
As I stand here, in the threshold
to the sitting room, looking in on one of the few people who have been with me
throughout almost every step in my life, I try my hardest to contain my
emotions, but find that I almost cannot.
My grandmother is deteriorating
before my eyes.
It takes all I can do to keep it
together.
Most days, she remains in the
sitting room, looking out at the garden. She prefers the birds and the bees,
the aimless movements of the trees. Squirrels delight her, and she is always in
awe of the flowers, which are blooming brightly on this fine spring day. Her
eyes dart rapidly from figure to figure, place to place, and though most would
find her actions befitting of a sharp mind, the truth is that the cognitive
decline is accelerating at a pace we cannot anticipate.
My mother has asked me to pray.
My father has warned me of the inevitable.
And yet I still watch, I think, in
wonder.
The sound of my breath catching
causes my grandmother’s eyes to stop searching. For her head to slowly turn.
For her gaze to finally meet mine. She says, “Hello.”
“Hello,” I say.
“I’m… I’m sorry. I… I didn’t see
you there.”
“It’s okay,” I offer, before
taking a step forward. “May I… may I come in?”
Rather than respond, my
grandmother turns her head to consider the garden once more, because this too
is not uncommon. The doctors have described it to us as “pervasive memory
loss,” which, though not uncommon for those suffering dementia, still disarms
me.
My grandmother was once the
sharpest person alive, with quick wit and a quirky sense of humor. Now, she is
but a shell of herself.
Why? I have questioned more than once. Why did this have to happen to you?
I have struggled to make sense of
this cruel and unfortunate aspect of life since her diagnosis, yet no matter
how hard I try to analyze it, or fathom the depths of despair her passing will
bring, I know I will never find any answers. Dementia, the doctors have said, is just sometimes a part of life.
I struggle not to cry in her
presence—mostly because Mom has told me not to, and Dad has said that it will
only make her confused, cause her grief. For this reason, I swallow the lump in
my throat, and ask, “Do you want to listen to a song?”
“A… song,” my grandmother says,
in that distant, faraway voice of hers. She doesn’t turn her head. She barely
moves her eyes from where they remain fixed on a bird bathing in a basin.
However, when she does speak, it’s to say, “A… a song.”
“Yes. A song.”
“A song,” she says.
I am unsure if she is truly
capable of articulating that I am asking her for permission. I draw my cell
phone from my pocket, and browse through my apps until I finally come across
the music player on my device.
Not long after, I press play, and
let the song begin.
The preamble of silence is
deafening, the soft whisper of someone breathing on the live recording enough
to raise the hair along the back of my neck. Yet, when the first key is struck,
it is like something has activated inside my grandmother’s brain. This is
especially true as the pianist begins to play the piano. At this time, my
grandmother’s eyes dilate. Her breath catches. Her fixed look is released, much
like the snap of a chain link being cut from its many rungs.
Then, a moment later, she turns
her head to face me. “Carrie,” she says.
“Yes, Grandma,” I say, in a voice
that I hope is as strong as I would like it to be. “I’m here.”
She extends a trembling hand
toward me, and I take hold of her palm, which is so frail and small, her skin
so thin I’m afraid it might tear. I allow her to guide me forward with a gentle
brush of her thumb, and come to stand beside her as she returns her gaze to
look outside.
“It’s beautiful,” I say as I gaze
upon the birds alighting on the bath in the garden.
“There’s so many,” my grandmother
says. “So many colors.”
“There is,” I say.
I attempt to hold my hand steady,
if only to still the tremors, but know that doing so is likely only to cause
her harm. I allow myself to ride these emotions, these excessive waves, all
while I gaze out the full-length windows that span from floor to ceiling.
Standing here, in the sitting
room that has been so special but has become more so since winter, I can still
recall one of my earliest memories as a child—when, upon waking from a late
dream, I’d stumbled in here, crying my eyes out, holding a stuffed bear in one
hand.
She’d asked, What’s wrong?
While I’d replied, I had a dream.
What kind of dream? she’d asked.
A dream where you were gone, I’d said.
She’d looked upon me with kind
eyes, her mouth slightly agape. Then she’d said, Come here, and gestured for me to come stand at her side. Do you remember what I told you? she had
asked. About what we do when we have bad
dreams?
We tell ourselves that they aren’t real, I had replied, that they’re only dreams that can’t hurt us.
Exactly, she’d said. She’d taken hold of my hand, then; and though
trembling, she’d welcomed me at her side, and held me close in the twilight
hours of the morning.
It is like this now, in a way—a
moment that has come full circle in many respects. While she sits here, gazing
out the window, very much like the child who had expected comfort, I am like
her grandmother seeking to offer peace at a time when there seems to be none.
At her last appointment, the
doctors had told us that my grandmother would likely not live much longer. They’d
determined this by a scan of her brain, the state of her being. They’d told us
that, if we were lucky, we’d make it to Christmas, maybe New Year’s at most.
But here, at the mid-point of April, she still sits, looking on at the birds,
and the bees, and everything that could possibly be.
“Grandma?” I ask her as the song
continues to play.
“Yes?” she asks, in that same
faraway voice.
I’m unsure what to say,
especially as the pianist begins to play the final lines. As a result, I simply
remain quiet, and gently squeeze her hand.
“I remember,” she says, suddenly,
without being prompted.
“Remember what, Grandma?” I ask,
before tilting my eyes down to look at her.
My grandmother doesn’t respond.
She simply continues to look out the window.