Today I helped my father move my grandmother, Ruthie, into a group home. She has been staying in a rehabilitation center. She has fallen maybe 10 times in the past fourteen months. She has broken two hips, and Ruthie has had surgery twice. The first time she fell, I was told that no one came to her aid for about 20 hours.
So she was laying on the floor with a broken hip, without access to the bathroom, food or water for almost a full day. Then my sister saved her life. Literally, my sister saved my Ruthie’s life. But the event permanently damaged Ruthie’s abilities to exist. She has been on the long slide from occasional dementia to what some of her medical professionals are labeling Alzheimer’s. She recognizes my father and her other children. But she hasn’t known who I am since I have been here. She doesn’t recognize my sister even though my sister saved her life.
So after my near daily trips to visit my Ruthie, I have wondered who she thinks I am. Like I had mentioned, she doesn’t like me calling her grandmother anymore. So I have been sticking with Ruthie. And I have reminded her what city she lives in, why she was in a rehab center, why her hips hurt, who I am, what happened to Shelly, my grandfather. I have tried to explain why her daughter doesn’t come to visit. And why her other son has only visited once in ten years. And some things I can’t say. I don’t know what happened to her house in Dormont. Or why she doesn’t have any money. But I can hold her when she starts crying. And I can chat about how she used to dance and swim as a child.
Today I broke down. My father was talking to the nurse about her medication as I sat with Ruthie in her new room. She cried and whined and struck me (however weakly) in the chest. “Why don’t you stay here. I don’t wanna!” She started gathering her pillows and combs, packing to leave with my father and I. She shrieked like a four year-old being left with a new sitter. I couldn’t take it anymore. I hugged her and kissed her tears and ran for the door.
I don’t have anything left. It’s almost time for me to return to Olympia/Seattle and start my life over. I’m scared, tired and beaten down by this experience. I don’t know exactly everything I have learned this summer. But I have learned something.
I think it could related to a Charles Dickens quote that mefite ND¢ left in comment recent thread: “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.”