My grandmother died.
It was not too long ago but I haven't seen her in over a year. If you wanted to be pedantic, I haven't really seen here since I was a teenager. Nobody in my family had really seen Granny since then either. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer's before I'd grow into the man I am today.
Granny would never know me ever again.
The image she held onto of me, was a young twelve year old, boy, not the pierced and tattoo covered freak she had only seen at sideshows while growing up in Kentucky. Inevitably, I scared the living daylights out of my grandmother for years, just by showing up. Then I would remind her who I was, only to get a, "what happened?!"
She really was a sweet woman though. Not a mean bone in her body. Alzheimer's Disease has a pretty serious impact on the personality of its victims though. Unfortunately, Granny went from the sweetheart she was, to a rugged woman ready to run away or gun you down with words. She was a sweet old woman that took care of me when I was sick, taught me to sew and sat and laughed as Pa and I would try to play bluegrass music on a banjo and juice harp. She would bake biscuits with hot chocolate pudding drizzled over top of them for my cousins and I regularly. She liked to call it biscuits and chocolate gravy. All these memories of her would flash through my head and I couldn't stand the look of fear on her face every time I saw her or the disgruntled remarks to all of us.
It really made family gatherings hard.
It was actually so hard for me that I even hid away from my extended family.
She left the struggles of this shiftless and tragic world at the break of the new year.
Now, I've never been much for religion and never once called myself agnostic either. Plain and simple, I don't believe in any god, or gods for that matter. There is, however, an unexplainable connection that exists between humanity, our world and our universe. I've never cared for an explanation, scientists saying we are all derived from cosmic star dust has always been good enough for me. The power of the human mind is also far beyond our grasp and this has always forced me to feel if you believe in heaven or hell, you will create one for your soul to move on to after death.
She would live free of Alzheimer's once again in the heaven she has created.
I didn't come to this conclusion on religion by luck. I researched. I went to all different kinds of churches and read my fair share of holy books. A fairly common thing I came across was the belief that the spirit will take hold in an animal. The animal changes with each specific group of people but a pretty common one would be crows and ravens. I have to say that this has always been a pretty far off concept to me but one fact holds true: since my grandmother has passed, I've been greeted each morning by a raven in my yard.
The Westbound Train, or death as non-gypsy folk like to say, is a pretty morbid subject for my first post but it is a fact of life. I feel this piece, however, is a pretty optimistic outlook on death. I got the inspiration for it as I walked to work yesterday morning, greeted again by my raven friend. Yup, this one's all non-fiction. An insufferable amount of time is spent coping with the effects of Alzheimer's on loved ones. They're practically lost at the first onset of symptoms but you don't feel it necessary to mourn their loss as their physical form is still around you. Everyday is spent watching them, wondering where they are in their mind and when they're going to actually pass and leave us entirely. Death is the only release that any of this affliction's victims have to escape from its terrifying ailments. I've never enjoyed dealing with it and, until recently, have always had a hard time talking about it. This is actually my first piece that ever even mentions Alzheimer's. So I hope you enjoyed it, comment freely and come back around to read my blog again.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing man. My Nona had Alzheimer's as well, but we were lucky in that it was brief before she passed. I like what you're writing man. Keep it up!
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