You may have heard me talk of my sister Carla. She travels from her home in San Antonio about every three months and serves as my editor for Mondays with Mom each week. Carla’s youngest daughter is Lydia.
Lydia was here this past weekend with her mom for the Bunn family Christmas celebration. We were able to spend some special time together working puzzles and playing games. I asked her to write about Mom for this week’s article.
My grandmother has dementia. It’s a scary disease when you hear about it and think about it, and for some, it’s really scary when you see it too. Its cause is unknown, there isn’t a really clear diagnosis, and there’s no known cure. All the lack of information that goes along with this specific psychological disease makes it scary because as a human race we tend to be scared of the unexplainable. With everything so uneasy and weird associated with dementia, usually I’m worried for my grandmother because I’m not there often enough to see her. The stories I hear from my family members make me more frightened of this illness that’s taken over her body and her brain. That’s the key, however: it’s only in her body and her brain, and not in her personality and spirit.
When I arrived for my visit on Thursday I walked in, gave my grandfather a hug, and walked down the hallway to see my grandmama. She was lying in her chair almost as if she had been lying there for the entire year since I’d been there last. Exact same position, exact same blanket wrapped around her dancing toes. I leaned over to give her a kiss and said, “Hey, Grandmama, how are you today?” She replied the way she always does, “I’m doin’ good; how are you?” You would’ve thought she knew exactly who I was, but in fact, she had no clue. She’s just so sweet that she would never tell you that to your face.
Living so many miles away from Grandmama makes me think our family might be losing her each and every day gone by, but as I spent more time with her this weekend, I realized there’s no way we could. She’s constantly laughing, giggling, singing, whistling, humming, smiling, and everything in between. She makes jokes all the time, the kind that make you get a cramp from laughing so hard. She’s sassy and snappy with my grandaddy the way she’s always been. She even knows when she’s made a joke or has done something silly because she’ll almost always look over at me and winks.
When she laughs, it makes me giggle, which makes her laugh again, harder, and more intentionally. Every time I ask her, “What are you laughing at?” she smiles, giggles, and says, “You.” I guess she thinks I’m funny looking or something. I’m not sure what she’s laughing at, if it’s something really there or something she sees that’s floating around my head. Even so, the giggles and jokes we pass between each other make it seem as if she really knows who I am. So that’s why the moments I spent with my grandmamma this time around made me realize this disease is not so scary after all. I know her body and brain will continue to decline, but no matter what she’ll still be giggling and laughing.
