Tonight I took my grandmother to a sleep disorder center so they could monitor her sleep. She and I walked up to the building carrying her suitcase, pocket book and her oxygen, we stepped up the stair she nearly fell down the stairs. We walked into the building arm in arm and she kept pulling to the left, she could not keep her balance. It kind of spooked me. I could not help but to think about when I took my cat to put her to sleep, and I giggled an anxious uncomfortable giggle. I felt terrible for even the thought.

I took her to the room which she would be spending the night, and it was really beautiful for a hospital room, I mean it looked like a hotel room. They had a big soft comforter on the bed, drapes on the windows, a big comfy chair, a big closet and a large bathroom with a medicine cabinet and a big shower. Grandma sat in the chair and began trying to open her luggage, after watching her struggle for a few minutes I opened it for her. She took out her slippers and threw them on the floor. We both looked down at the slippers and she began reaching for her shoes, and again I offered help. I knelt on the floor took off her shoes for her and slipped her feet into her slippers.

The nurse came in talk to her, and the nurse spoke to my grandmother like she was a child. The scary part was that my grandmother responded like a child. I suddenly realized my grandmother was no longer the woman I knew as a child. She reverted back to a childlike existence, and she needed to be treated that way.

See I always had a hero worship thing going with my grandmother. I always thought she was so smart and sophisticated, everything I am not. She had everything my mother did not. She had a superb fashion sense and a sharp wit. I could remember watching my mouth when she was around for fear of saying something incorrectly because her english was superb and my accent was always horrendous. She was always impressed by creativity when my parents were not. When I got older I was able to discuss Art history, Psychology, and Shakespeare with Grandma, no one else in my family would be able to keep up but her. But now I look at her and it really scares me, this woman that used to be so great is now a little girl again. I used to call her on the phone when was young and hear my grandfather offering her a coffee, or I used to see my grandfather washing the dishes and be in amazement at how lucky grandma was to have such a wonderful man and wonder why my dad wasn't like that.

Both my grandparents are still alive, Grandma is 87 and Grandpa is 98. Grandpa is in better condition than grandma and still tells me how blessed he feels to be with such a wonderful woman. It's funny because Grandpa was a 6'2, athlete with blue eyes and back hair, actually he was extraordinarily attractive. But grandma was 5'2, dark haired, dark eyed with bottle top glasses even in her youth not much to write home about, but grandpa still doesn't know why she would choose him. Ha! He told me that he was glad she did not take the scholarship that NYU offered her when she graduated High school, because then she may have married a professor instead of him. He is so silly. AT 98 years old my grandma still bosses him around, and he seems lost when she goes anywhere. If she goes shopping, he stays by the front window and waits.

Which brings me back to why i was writing this.... I have an overwhelming fear that one of them is gonna go. In reality if either one of them goes today, they would have had a good long life, but what will become of the one that is left behind? How do you leave someone that has been by your side for 70 years? That you have produced 3 generations with? How devastating! That trip to the doctor has me thinking to much.... I better just go to sleep.


Love Alwayz
Liz