Yesterday was my day at home watching our son, the now weekly routine that has begun since my wife went back to work. It was another beautiful day, a little bit chilly, but beautiful. We didn't go to the beach like we did the previous week despite the fact that part of me really wanted to. Instead, after playing around our house in the morning and after his nap, we went down to visit his great grandmother, my Baba. My mother in law who has been watching him four days a week usually takes him to see my other grandparents, Babci and Dziadziu, so I figured I would go visit Baba. Neither my son or I had seen Baba in probably close to a month and it was definitely time for us to make the trip down there. For those of you who don't know (which is probably most of you), she has been having trouble with her memory and it looks like it might be the early days of either dementia or Alzheimer's. I don't know enough about either to tell the difference, but it is one of the two. That being the case, I wasn't sure if she would recognize me. From what my mother has been telling me, she has never forgotten my son. She has a picture of him right by her bed that she tells me she likes to look at every day to remind herself of how beautiful he is. If anything, I hope that she can hold on to the memory of him the longest as it seems to bring her the most joy right now. But anyway, she did remember me (so I think) and let me into the house. To be honest, it was probably because I was holding my son in my arms as I walked up to the back door of my parents house.
Needless to say, she was overjoyed that we had come to visit. She dropped whatever she was doing, I think it was dishes, and joined us in the living room to play. I had brought a little box of toys with us so that he had something to keep him occupied. Out of all the toys in the box, he took out the two Tupperware containers to play with and left the rest either in the box or on the floor. I don't know what it is about simple objects that fascinate him so much, but he loves them and often will choose them over his regular, colorful toys that are supposed to be so attractive to little tykes like him. In the living room of my parents house, they have a wooden table with an opening in the middle and a glass top. I had to obviously remove all the fragile and delicate objects from the table top lest they go flying onto the floor with the swipe of a tiny hand. Sure enough, onto the table the Tupperware went and that's pretty much where it stayed unless my son wanted to move. At times he put the smaller one in his mouth and crawled around, at others, he held one in each hand and managed to do the same. One of his favorite parts of the table was the passage under the glass. It was just the right size for him to duck his head and crawl through. Once, as it goes with little kids, is never enough. He had to crawl through the table multiple times, back and forth, before he was satisfied. Through it all, my grandmother had a huge smile plastered on her face and loved every second that she got to spend with her great grandson. While she didn't remember my son's exact birthday, she knew it was coming up very soon. Her birthday is less than a month after my son's and I find it quite amazing to watch these two people interact, one of them about to turn 1, the other about to turn 92. There seems to be a good amount of pep and vitality left in my grandmother although I am sure a big part of it had to do with her great grandson visiting her. She even tried to hold him by the hand so they can walk together. Unfortunately, my son doesn't like interaction with people he hasn't seen in a while and shied away a little at first. He warmed up quickly though and was soon babbling and offering his toys to her.
Despite all the happiness, I could definitely see hints of my grandmothers memory troubles show through a little bit. While she never asked who I was, she also never called my by name which is a little out of the ordinary for her. Either she didn't want to be embarrassed for not knowing who I was or she simply didn't want to call me by name. All that mattered was that she remembered my son's name. There were some other hints as well, subtle, but still there. During our conversation while my son was playing with his toys, she said something along the lines of, "Its my daughter's birthday today, I have to find a card for her." I just found it odd that she would refer to her daughter like that considering that she is my mom. Nothing major, but I have heard from my mother that there are days she won't remember that my mom is her daughter at all. But I guess that is how it goes, you have some good days and you have some bad days. I just hope for her sake that when it starts to get worse that it doesn't drag on and cause her undue anxiety and pain at not being herself. She knows now that she is slowly losing it and I can imagine its not easy for either my mother or her to go through as she lives with my mother and sees her every day. I can tell already from the emotions welling up inside me as I write this that I will not have an easy time with Baba losing her memory and slowly making her way downwards. I will probably have a little bit harder time with her than I will have with my other grandparents as she used to watch me for a few years when I was just a little tyke like my son is now. I know I will have to deal with it at some point and I am also aware that we don't get to choose when we have to deal with it, but I would rather it not happen now. But when would be a good time, now or 2 years from now. Now might be easier considering my son's age, but who knows. In any case, I will make every effort to visit her as often as possible while she still remembers who her grandson and great grandson are. I have such loving memories of her that I will never forget and I can't wait to share them with my son when he is older.
No comments:
Post a Comment