Don't you ever let me get like that!

I went to see my grandmother on Saturday, after almost 6 months. I had been putting it off and off and off because my sister went and was really upset. Yes, this is my 'hard-as-nails', council-estate sister (the one who used to pierce her own ears when she was a teenager) ...................upset, yes, actually upset! She's a bit like me, we both disguise feelings with sarcastic humour, so for her to be visibly (and audibly) upset is a huge thing.

My mum and aunt made the decision to move my grandmother into sheltered accommodation towards the end of last year because she had the quite rapid onset of dementia (my grandmother, not my mum). As they were concerned that she wasn't safe being on her own, they found a very nice residential complex where she has her own flat with living room, bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom, but within a warden-controlled complex. This means that the carers check on her in the morning, evening, and several times during the day and deal with any issues or concerns. So, it was a good compromise between making sure she was safe, and not taking away ALL her privacy and independence.
I don't think anyone thought that her dementia would progress so rapidly and within six months she is probably about 5% of her old self.

Anyway, back to Saturday. My mum managed (as usual) to badger, blackmail, and cajole me into going over even though I said I didn't want to go. I had a really anxious feeling about the possibility of seeing my grandmother, but my mum chooses to hear what she wants to hear sometimes. Part of it is a competition she has with my aunt over whose children are the better grandchildren. My cousin is going to visit on Tuesday, so I think my mum was worried that she would be 'out-grandchilded' by my aunt (auntie Junie) because I hadn't been.

The residential home is actually very nice, especially when you look at some residential homes which are just glorified chapels of rest, full of barely-breathing human fossils in various states of decomposition.
But I was actually shocked when I saw my grandmother. To start with she didn't have a clue who I was, even when mum prompted (and prodded) her. I know that her sight and hearing are both going, but she didn't know who I was, even with my mum hollering at 80 decibels in her ear "Do you know who it is? It's Andrew.........Andrew mum! Andrew, your grandson. Do you remember him? Mum? Mum! It's Andrew". But the reality was that she just looked even more dazed and confused as she trued to manoeuvre her walking frame from the bedroom.
She was like a picture of one of the survivors from Bergen-Belsen, tiny, shrunken, stick-thin limbs, with a face that had almost caved in completely. Dark circles under her eyes, and the vacant expression of someone who isn't somewhere else, they just aren't anything or anywhere. It was truly shocking and upsetting and I knew that I shouldn't have gone.

I stayed for about an hour, and during that time, she was lucid for barely a couple of minutes. It's incredibly hard to have a conversation with someone who has no reaction, I felt like an old, gay Sally Field in Steel Magnolias. But instead of talking to a lifeless, but still stunningly beautiful, Shelby, I had a total stranger who used to be my bright, chatty grandmother. She had always been so fastidious about her appearance, her hair was done every week, fingernails manicured, hands moisturised, make-up applied, and smartly-dressed. I've forgotten how many times she ranted about the old people she saw on the street who had 'let 'em selves go'. She used to say 'Don't you ever let me get like that, will ya, you bang me over the 'ed wiv a lump a' wood if I ever lose me marbles'.


And that's just what I could hear in my head as I was sitting there looking at this complete stranger whose only contribution to the conversation was to beg to be taken to the bathroom. 'I wanna go to the toilet, I want to go to the toilet', like a tiny child. That wasn't the woman I'd been looking up to and loving and being loved by for over 40 years, it was someone different, someone I didn't know. And the only recognition for me was something I felt in my heart, somewhere between love and pity.

"Don't you ever let me get like that!"

I can't imagine how hard this is for my mum and my aunt. I spent an hour there, but they spend every Tuesday, most Thursdays, and alternate Saturdays, cleaning, washing, tidying, and chatting to someone who probably only exists in their hearts as well.