Ganny

What is it like to forget two minutes after the fact that your family was just there to see you? What is it like to go to the grocery store and not be able to remember what you picked up on the previous isle? What is it like to know that you cannot take care of yourself but you cannot remember that someone else is taking care of you? What is it like to not be able to remember that someone did visit you today and that you have not been isolated alone in your house the whole week? My sweet grandmother, Ganny, is quite forgetful these days. Sometimes her constant worrying and repetitions can be frustrating and annoying, but then I feel bad because I’m sure that they are frustrating and annoying for her too, because I know she realizes that her memory is not what it used to be. I don’t know if she realizes just exactly how bad her memory is now, but maybe it would be better if she didn’t, because her biggest fear as she has been growing older is that her mind would go the way her mother’s did. But sometimes, I think she needs to be told just how far gone she is (not that she would remember the conversation) because she gets mad about things that haven’t really happened or happened in a different way than she remembers, she loses large amounts of money (but gets mad if she can’t have the money she wants) and she thinks that she should still be able to drive. My parents are getting ready to move to Atlanta and they’re taking my grandmother with them. This is causing a great deal of anxiety for Ganny and she calls constantly, wondering how to pack, or she thinks that my mom has already gone to Georgia, or she thinks that my parents are moving first and that she will be in Houston for a while by herself and then they are coming back for her. My parents keep telling her that she has nothing to worry about, that they’re packing her up, and that she’s riding with my mom to Atlanta. She’s also very concerned about her medicine. Usually my dad takes care of her medicine, but he has already gone to Atlanta, and so my mom is doing it, but Ganny apparently does not trust my mom to take care of everything. She also constantly worries about not having enough money and her mind must be stuck back in the Great Depression because she has plenty of money now. I feel sad for her because she is not a peace and is very lonely inspite of a loving family taking care of her and visiting her. I hope that I die before I lose my mind. It seems like all too often the healthcare system fights so hard to simply keep a body functioning, when the person that the body belongs to no longer exists. I do not want to be pumped full of food and medicines when I’m old (or now, if I was in some kind of accident) for the sake of saying that I’m “alive,” when the real me has long since vanished.