Thirtysomething

Nana

When Ron first proposed, I said I wanted two things: to get married in a church and for my grandmother to be there. Ron wanted to fly to the Caribbean for a destination wedding. We may have been able to find a church in the Caribbean but there was no way my grandmother was getting on a plane. So I won.

Well, sort of. As it turns out, my grandmother has recently entered into end-stage senile dementia. She's been going senile for quite some time now, but mostly it was forgetting people's names or days of the week. She still lived on her own in Brooklyn until two weeks ago. She lived in Brooklyn her entire life. She rarely left that area except for visits to my parents' house. I think it was hard for her to imagine what life was like outside of the city. When I was a little girl, she used to play with me in my parents' backyard. One of my most vivid memories of her is when we were galloping around pretending to ride ponies--I must have been about 6. In fact, my first memory ever that I totally remember on my own without the aid of photos is her holding me in a pool on vacation. My brother wasn't born yet, not even on the way, so I must have been about 3. I remember I was in one of those swimmy tubes and I was throwing pennies to other, older kids in the pool who would dive to get them and bring them back to me.

Anyway, something set the dementia into overdrive recently. She still recognizes my parents, but that will change eventually. She would probably still remember me. But she's lost all bladder and bowel control because her brain most likely doesn't register those signals anymore. She all of a sudden can't walk, she who until two weeks ago, lived on the 3rd floor of a walk-up building. The tests show nothing wrong with her legs or feet, but she claims she's in too much pain to walk. Who knows if that pain is real or a figment of her imagination. She's being sent to a rehab facility this week, one connected to a nursing home. Pending any insurance issues, she'll likely never leave there. Things could change in the next two months, but chances are, Nana won't be at the wedding. She'll turn 87 next month, so it's not like it comes as a surprise that she'd start to fail somewhat. It's just that we are so close to the wedding, I really thought she would make it.

But even if she is there, she won't really be there, if you know what I mean.

posted by DJ Heavy D @ 1:29 PM