Time with Grandma: Dementia or Delight?

My Grandmother was an amazing women who died at the age of 94.  She was one of the most intriguing women I knew growing up and for me her stories began with a trip to the Wild, Wild West as a "not-so-young" single person who came to Idaho to find a real man!

She and two of her friends arrived on the train one summer to spend a year teaching at the elementary school in Idaho and couldn't wait to ride horses, shoot guns and meet men...which they certainly did.

My grandma stood about 5' 2" tall at best and when she met my handsome, 6' 2" tall grandpa she was smitten by the way he taught her how to shoot a gun and his gentle cowboy ways.  My favorite picture of them is her with a shotgun and him with a tin can on his head and both of them an unusual 32 years old and unhitched.

My grandpa had 10 older sisters so he was a quiet sort.  He'd learned to keep his mouth shut and to bide his time.  When his soul mate, Emily left Idaho and rode on the train back to Philly his heart went with her.  It wasn't long before he wrote her and said he was coming to visit.  Her mother was all atwitter hoping this might be "the one" for her spinster daughter.

John & Emily Pratt at their wedding

John Pratt showed up and Emily's Dad and brother were so taken with him that they played cards every day for the first three days and kept him rather busy entertaining them.  When my great-grandma asked how it was going, Emily confessed that she'd not had a moment alone with John because of the male members of her family.  That next night, after dinner...everyone disappeared.  A few short days later they were married and I still have her silk, dark blue dress she wore on that day.  A short honeymoon followed and Emily stayed behind to finish her term at the school she taught at before moving west.

John returned on the train and it was announced that he was now married.  It wasn't long before everyone knew he and Emily were expecting a child.  When she finally came to Idaho she was well along into her first pregnancy and picked up the phone to hear on the party-line someone doubting that the child was John's.  She was devastated.

She got down on her knees everyday and prayed her baby would not come a day too soon.  The gossip mongers had her feeling scared, worried and ashamed instead of feeling the simple joy of a firstborn coming into the world.

My Uncle arrived on his due date...exactly nine months from the day his parents married.  Gossip mongers were hushed and all was well.

My grandparents went on to have two other children, the youngest being my mother.  They lived a happy and full life on a farm and later in the city. Emily was many things, a great mother, great wife, great friend.  She played the piano by ear and if you hummed a song she would pick it up by ear in the key you were humming.  She was incredible.  She had a hearty laugh, a ribald sense of humor and a hug that went on for days.  She loved my grandpa and when he died it was awful.  I'd never seen my mother cry before that day and certainly had never seen my stoic grandma cry.  I was 9.

About ten years later we celebrated her 80th birthday and she had a mild stroke at her party.  It was almost undetectable until her memory suffered.  It was downhill from there, in the sense that her short term memory loss was such that she couldn't remember if she'd eaten, indicating hunger shortly after completing a meal.

When I returned from college as a young married person I couldn't find a teaching job right away and my mom asked me if I would go and care for my grandma, to give her a bath and do her hair and give her a perm every few months.  I agreed, as I adored my time with her and while my Uncle was living with her, it was girl time she enjoyed!  My mom was working full time and couldn't do it, so it was a special joy for me.

Sometime during our time together I found out I was expecting my first child.  We had decided not to tell anyone until I was well past 3 months as my own mother had experienced losses and I feared I would also.  One day I told Grandma and we giggled with girly joy and talked about what his/her name would be and all of our hopes and dreams for him.

The next week when I returned I again told Grandma my joyful news.

Once again, she reacted as if it was the first time she'd heard this wonderful news.

I can't begin to count the times I had this experience with my Grandma before my firstborn finally arrived.  But I never got tired of it.

I wasn't telling anyone else, so I went for my weekly visit to share my news and to get the same, wonderful, excited reaction that I so loved.  It's one of my favorite set of moments with my grandmother.  Everyone else heard that story once, but she...she heard it probably 20 times and each time it was a celebration. Each time it was filled with the same excitement and surprise.

Each time she hugged me and exclaimed her utter joy for my fortune!

You see besides having dementia, my Grandmother was blind, so she couldn't see my swelling belly to give her visual cues.  She only had her then failing brain to hold onto what she knew.  Toward the end of the nine months she started asking on occasion, "Now remind me, who is pregnant?" and we'd share the wonderful news again.  Her impending great grandchild was becoming a long term memory even before he arrived.

Aunt Jeanine, Grandma Lilli and Great Grandma Emily

Grandma got to hold that little baby and when she held him for the first time I saw that young little mother (33 to be exact) holding her firstborn, cooing over his arrival and praising him for arriving "on time".  I saw a woman who had lived a long and happy life, some of it in the dark and some of it without daily memories to sustain her and my heart swelled with gratitude that I could call her one of my own.

She wasn't around much longer, and never met any of my other children.  But Emily lives on.  In my memories, in my heart, in my laughter, in my mother's and my fingers on the piano, in my daughter named after her, in my longing for those moments sharing my greatest joy again.

It was a secret delight we shared made possible by dementia.  One that I will hopefully one day never forget, but if I do...I will rely on my people to remind me of it...often and at minimum weekly, when they come to do my hair and share their moment of joy with me, over and over again so I too can delight in their stories each and every time I hear them, as if for the first time.

Thanks Gram...love you so much.