Glimmers

My grandpa is dying. He's been dying for over five years now. Not his body. His body is fine. It's his mind that's dying. Alzheimers.

I think Alzheimer's is one of the cruelest ways to die. It slowly robs you of every dignity that you have as an adult. And the worst thing is, my the victim knows it. It frustrated my grandpa for years, and as the disease progressed, it angered him, it saddened him, it ran over him like an avalanche. He could not stand up to the force of it's sheer power. It crushed him.

When the disease first began it's course, the only thing I could think to pray of was for little glimmers of joy throughout the journey. That in the midst of frustration and anger and sadness, there would be room for laughter. That, there has been.

My dad is in charge of my grandparent's estate. My dad was forced to get an education on the disease that was taking his father. His father, the farmer in Kentucky, was being outwitted by an invisible enemy. His father who was small in stature and soft spoken was also tough as nails. His father whose hands bore the permanent stains from years of tobacco farming, and whose walls held numerous hunting weapons was now the child in the parent/child relationship.

My grandparents lived through the depression, and it has been obvious by my grandpa's distrust for financial institutions as well as his need to be a packrat. Like the time my grandma found a rolled up sock in the back of their closet, partially buried between a loose piece of paneling and the floorboard. The sock felt funny, so she opened it. Inside, she found money, carefully, tightly rolled. My grandpa must have been adding to this secret 'nest egg' for years. The roll started with a meticulously rolled $100 bill with another taped to it's end, and another, and another...


Or another time that my grandma found my grandpa out in the middle of the night digging with a shovel. He claimed there was money or gold or something. She remembered that at their old home, more than 50 years ago, he dug up mason jars of money when they moved away. She wondered if he had buried money here. Sure enough, with the help of a metal detector, they uncovered canning jars and canning jars of coins. I am sure there are more as they own lots of farmland and had rented hundreds of acres for years from their neighbor. (Hey, stop looking up the address now and stick with me!)


He's done all the normal alzheimer patient things too. Locked out his 'favorite little buddy' grandson because he thought he was a criminal. He took a gun to him too (by this time, the ammo was gone, but he didn't know). Thought an outlet was a screw so he put a screwdriver into the outlet. Accused workers of breaking into his home. Accused bank owners of stealing his money.


My favorite story of my grandpa, ironically, is one of my scariest stories of my life. Jonah was three and Gable was a newborn. It was October of 1998. The boys and I drove down to Kentucky to spend three days with my grandparents, as well as my cousins who lived on the same property. When we got there, we found out that some gang was terrorizing their town. They hadn't killed anyone yet, but they broke into houses nightly, but only after 'warning' the homeowners for several nights ahead of time. What I didn't know until I was all tucked in there, was that my grandparent's home had been 'warned' the night before. Warning involved knocking on windows and shooting bullets through the windows. So, that night I lay dead still, totally flat and under the covers in the front, tiny bedroom of a small old farmhouse. The bedroom was only big enough for a double bed and a little toddler bed next to it, placed there for Jonah. Two walls had windows on them, and these were the windows that had been knocked on the night before. I could not sleep. My heart pounded all night and I held my two little boys tightly under the covers all night long. By morning, I was exhausted, but with the first streams of light, I felt safe enough to doze.

I awoke to the sound of someone pounding on the door and yelling. It was my cousin, who lives on the same property. The gang had just shot through her home and she had run down the gravel road to get my grandpa's help. My grandpa came out, pulled his boots on, grabbed his shotgun, and was out the back door. No calling 911 (I doubt they have it), no calling the local police. That wasn't how things were done. He would take care of his family.

He never did find the people, but he found a ladder up against my cousin's home at an uncovered window, and my grandpa chopped it to pieces. I guess the perverts were peeping toms as well.

That day, he sat in his truck in the driveway all day long. In one hand he held a gun and in one hand he held a camera. He was sure that the gang had driven down his street and being that his street was a dead-end, he reasoned that they would eventually have to leave past his house. He was convinced that he could teach them a lesson they would never forget.

Did I mention that he was in his early 80's?

Finally, at dinnertime, a car came creeping out from the dead-end. My grandpa stood in the middle of the road with his Polaroid camera in his hand and took a picture of every person in that car. And the crazy thing is: they sat there and let him! Maybe it was because he had his shotgun over his shoulder. I don't know.

What I do know is that whether it was putting coins in jars, taping money together little by little, or standing in the middle of an old country road with a shotgun and polaroid, my grandpa's message was loud and clear. He was going to protect his family. He didn't need the police. He was worth nothing if he couldn't protect the ones he loved the most.

So, as my grandpa sits in a nursing home in a wheelchair (simply because he has forgotten that he can walk), I think that my prayer for glimmers of sunshine has been answered. I find it hysterical that a man no taller than 5'10" would stare down a gang and take their pictures. I think it's hilarious that he chopped up their ladder with such vengeance. I crack up when I think of him hiding all of his money, yet letting my dad pay for his doctor bills!

Yet, how much faith must his family have in him if they are willing to run through gunfire with just one thought: If I can just get to grandpa, everything will be okay. He'll take care of it and he'll take care of me.

What a thought. And now that he can't take care of his home or his family, I am reminded that I must play a part in doing this for him. It's what he wanted. It's what he lived for and was willing to die for.