stella_marie

i spent the enitre week before my trip to florida preparing myself mentally to see my grandfather. it had been a year since i saw him. he has parkinsons and dementia. i just kept planning my reaction when i said hello grandpa and he would have no idea who i was. turns out, i planned all wrong. he remembered me. there was only one instance in the week he got confused and asked who i was. there was a lot i didnt prepare for. i didnt know he would zone in and out of reality. he would just stare at me and not say anything. i have no idea where he was or what he was thinking, if anything at all. i didnt know he no longer walks - he shuffles. he moves each foot a few inches and is tired after moving from one room to the next. so he spends a lot of time in his wheelchair. he wears a diaper cause he no longer can control when he goes to the bathroom and most of the time doesnt even know if he did or not. he has to be fed cause his shakes are so bad from the parkinsons that he cant hold anything on a fork or spoon. i would sit at the table constantly having to wipe the drool from his face or help him blow his nose cause he didnt realize it was running down his face. sometimes the dementia made for some well needed comic relief. he was sitting at the table for lunch and kept falling asleep so i asked him if he got any sleep the night before. he said no cause he went out. i asked where he went and he said he went out with a woman. i asked if he was going to see her again and he looked at me with this serious look and said - no - i already have a wife. i sat with him and family photos and reviewed the family with him. sometimes he needs a first letter but he seems to remember his three children pretty well. ive been trying to write this journal entry since i came back and it just never felt right. the weird thing is, the thing i feel the most of is anger. my grandfather was always a very angry and bitter man. he would always talk about this immense love he had and how he would only be friends with someone who deserved that love. so here he is now, not even a shadow of the man he used to be, and hes alone. not a single friend because nobody was every good enough to fill that spot. i keep thinking of how he wasted his life searching for this impossible dream. i wonder what he would have said if he saw how he was now. but then i think of how he used to smile and laugh at my jokes. i can still hear that laugh in my memory. he was the one to teach me to play pool. i remember the stubble of his beard on my cheek when he would kiss me hello and goodbye. my grandmother said he hadnt smiled and laughed like he did those few days i was there in a very long time. he had a smile on his face when i told him i was leaving. all of a sudden, his face went down and he said - youre leaving? it was like a sad puppy and it broke my fucking heart. that was the only moment i knew for sure not only did he know who i was, but that he loved me. im not sure if ill get to see him again before he dies. if i do, im sure he wont remember me. but im ok with it, because even if he doesnt, i know the last thing he did was press his scruffy face to my cheek for a kiss and told me he loved me. he might not remember it, but i always will.