By Melissa McMahon.
In January of 2010, it was a brisk sunny Wednesday when she said “I love you.”
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I’m not sure when the dementia started or when we noticed, but I had been making weekly visits for the past six months to relieve my dad who was my grandma’s full-time caregiver. He lived with her, but he didn’t have a life outside of her, except playing with Sadie the Doberman and tending to his Sonoma garden. He was usually in the garden when I would arrive, and we rarely exchanged greetings.
The days began to blur; dementia was stealing our lives. Some days were better than others, but better is a relative term when it comes to someone’s mind and body deteriorating and betraying them. I’d be lying if I said I never wished for her death. She was 84, and I feared she might live as long as her mother, my great grandma Helen, who died at 98. It seems like a cruel and unfair sentence; to force someone’s body to stay and only allow their mind to drift out of memory. For me, she was already gone, and I had already said goodbye.
Today seemed typical. As I entered the house, Sadie’s nails clicked along the wood floor bounding over to greet me. The screen door slammed, and her tongue kissed my cheek as I turned to avoid her halitosis. I first learned the word halitosis from grandma. She used it to describe the bad breath of a black lab from my childhood. “Ok, Sadie, that’s enough,” I said pushing her paws down and wiping away the spittle. Continue Reading…