Just a Shell

This past Sunday, I went to visit my grandparents in Kentucky. My grandma was there, but my grandpa wasn't. In body, he was present. In mind, he was missing.

He has alzheimers.

I last saw him almost two years ago. At that time, he didn't know me. He just sat in his chair and watched. I believe that he intuitively knew that he was in a 'known' and 'safe' place, even if he did not remember that it was home. He was very paranoid, thinking that grandchildren were robbers and obsessed about tiny, invisible particles of lint on the chair. He wore diapers and was a child again.

I figured this was where the disease would settle and that he would permanently live out his days with little memory and paranoid thoughts.

I was wrong.

Think of a cicada shell. On a cool autumn evening, you spy a shell stuck to a tree. Upon closer observation, it is quite easy to see that it was a cicada. You can easily see where the eyes once were, where the legs were, and even where the mouth was. Although you can see that it clearly once was a living cicada, it is now obvious that it is just a shell.

It bears resemblance in form, but that is where the likeness ends.

It's just a shell.

I walked in on Sunday to see the shell of a farmer. The shell of a grandfather. The shell of a husband and a father. In his chair he sat, holding a stuffed bunny on his lap. He never moved, never flinched, never turned his head to see who arrived.

I had heard about the eyes of alzheimer's patients before, but seeing his eyes clouded over, staring at nothing, was almost too much. His eyes were clouded over, a misty blue. Most people's pupils retract and constrict, they squint and shift their eyes almost constantly. With him, there was a dullness that I'd never seen before.

When it was time for dinner, my cousins pulled him to his feet.

Apparently, he forgets he can walk.

When they picked him up, they had to take the stuffed bunny from him to get him to hold onto them. He clenched his lips together, making moaning sounds. He shook his head back and forth in a frenzied 'no' motion. He cried. For the bunny.

He has totally forgotten how to talk.

He forgets that he likes food. They have to force-feed him the first bite each and every meal to remind him what food is and that he likes it.

He forgets that he knows how to feed himself. He needs to be taught to use a spoon each and every meal.

He forgets to chew, so he chokes.

To be held captive in the relentless path of this disease is just wrong on so many levels.

My other grandma, the one that is 90 and lives here, has always said that it is her desire to die peacefully, unexpectedly, in her sleep.

I now understand.