The Unmournable Loss

Sunday would have been my Grandfather’s 95^th birthday. If he were still alive, we would have celebrated with beef stroganoff and homemade apple pie with vanilla ice cream on top – the same birthday dinner he had every year for as far back as I can remember. Instead, it was a sad reminder that he has been gone for eight years. I was deployed to Iraq when my Grandfather, the man I most respected in all the world, died. I didn't even know about it until two days afterward (thanks to a combination of the time difference and spotty internet). It seemed so wrong that I didn't know - the world should have come to a standstill - the loss of this great man should have sent shockwaves around the world. It is true, my Grandfather had been losing strength for several years and we all knew we did not have a lot of time left with him, but I thought I would see him again (I was set to return to the States at the end of the month). The loss was sudden and heart-rending. Eight years later, the pain is still raw. I can't even write this without tears filling my eyes and a lump forming in my throat. When I read my Mom's email, I was devastated. I locked my computer and walked straight to my room, where I cried myself to sleep. The weather was bad in Ramadi, Iraq, which prevented me from leaving the base. Red air. That is what they called the condition when desert winds kicked up so much dust, helicopters were grounded due to lack of visibility. The chaplains on base were very supportive and tried to comfort me, but for the next few weeks I did most of my grieving in the quiet of the night, alone.

Fast-forward eight years to present day and once again, I’ve lost a grandparent - my last grandparent. It is so different, though. While I was not as close with Grandma as I was with Grandpa, she has been an extremely influential person in my life. She taught me to sew, to sift flour like Fannie Farmer, and make stained-glass cookies. She was always kind and gentle, loving even the unlovable and accepting everyone (even the boyfriends my sisters, cousins, and I brought home that no one else liked). She added "-kins" onto the ends of all our (the grandchildren’s') names, and read the same stories over and over again, doing all the voices like she was reading it to us for the first time. But the closeness or lack thereof is not the reason for the difference. The reason this loss is different is Grandma is still alive. She has advanced-stage Alzheimer’s. The difficult part – who am I kidding? Everything about Alzheimer’s is difficult! I guess the part I am having the hardest time wrapping my head around is just how incredibly quickly it developed. In November 2015, we noticed she was having a harder time coming up with words during normal conversation, and she would get confused if there were too many conversations going on at once (a normal occurrence when my family gets together). A month later, at Christmas dinner, she was confusing people (she was calling me by my mother’s name). Three months after that, March 2016, the grandmother I knew was gone. She was incapable of doing the most basic things for herself. The empty shell that remains behind wanders aimlessly throughout her house, picking up items and moving them from room to room, leaving messes in her wake. She doesn’t recognize any of her children or grandchildren. We are all strangers invading her home. I am not even sure she recognizes the house she resides in as her home, even though she has lived there since the 1960s.

I never had the chance to say good-bye. While she was still lucid, she refused to acknowledge that anything was wrong, so I couldn’t very well have that one last heart-to-heart with her. There were no last words of “remember I love you even when I can no longer recognize you.” Instead we played along with her “all is well” attitude until it was too late. I thought we would have more time with her. I had no way of knowing her mind would go so suddenly. I miss her, but it feels wrong to grieve when she is still walking, talking, and breathing. I may not be able to mourn her right now, but the loss is still very real.