Alzheimer’s sucks

I know I usually write sarcastic little entries about things that don’t really matter, like demise of Punk Rock, or silly little stories about my time in Iraq.

This week is a little more serious, so if you were expecting to laugh... I’ll get back to you next week.

I have been writing professionally for about four years. As a journalist I’ve written about many terrible things. I’ve written stories about Iraqi troops turning their weapons on the American Soldiers they lived and trained with for months. I’ve written about how PTSD and traumatic brain injury can ruin good peoples lives and tear families apart. I’ve written about suicide.

Whatever the subject matter, I have always been able to keep a level of professional detachment in my reporting. I was trained to report the facts, and I’m pretty good at it.

Professional detachment is not something I am capable of when writing about Alzheimer’s disease.  

My aunt, Jill Francis, recently founded Gracious Goodbyes, a nonprofit aimed at providing assistance to individuals and their loved ones confronted with progressive medical conditions. Last week she asked me to share a few words about my grandmother and her battle with Alzheimer’s over the past 11 years.

As I said, I’m a journalist. Putting myself into a story is uncomfortable but I believe there is value in sharing the story of this incredible woman.

From a the time I was born Jeannette Ingram played a huge role in my life. As is the case with many children of young parents, I spent a lot of my time at grandma and grandpa’s house while the folks worked.

I remember when I was very young she worked, but I think around the time my younger brother and cousin were born, she became a full time grandma, watching all of us during the day as our parents started their professional lives.

Looking back, she was infinitely patient with a young boy with an overactive imagination.

When my dad got out of the army, we moved into his parent’s house for a while, and Grandma Ingram became my constant companion.

She was my first playmate, and spent hours in the backyard enduring endless games of make believe with me.

Grandma Ingram was kind, with a sharp sarcastic wit that never came across as superior or mean-spirited. When my cousins or I were down she was quick with a joke or an ice cream sandwich, both excellent tools for cheering up a sad kid.

When I was 5 my dad went back to college, and we moved away. For the next 5 years or so I would spend 3 seasons in school and most of the summer at Grandma and Grandpa Ingram’s.

I remember by the end of 1st or 2nd grade, I had fallen way behind my classmates in reading, so over the summer grandma broke out my dad’s old Hardy Boys books and made me read for an hour each day.

I hated it for the first few weeks, and then I loved it. The Hardy Boys had cool cars and got to fly in planes and solved mysteries.

By the time I returned to school, I was a couple of grades ahead of my classmates in reading comprehension. Now almost 20 years later, I’m a journalist. Grandma cultivated in me a love for the written word, and in the long run, is largely responsible for helping me find my calling as a writer.

            Three days before my 11th birthday my family moved to Quito, Ecuador, where my parents served as missionaries with HCJB Global and my brother and I attended school at Alliance Academy International.

            I saw less of my family back in the states after that. We would still visit during summers, and every couple of years someone would come out and see how the missionaries in the family lived, but it was never the same.

We lived in Quito until I graduated high school in 2006.

In 2002, doctors diagnosed my grandmother with with early onset Alzheimer’s. She was 62. I was 14.

I do not remember feeling the gravity of the situation then. Maybe I was in denial, maybe I lived too far away or maybe I was just a teenager, but I honestly didn’t notice a big change the first few times we visited after her diagnosis.

She was still funny, still kind and would still chase her grandsons around the house for patting her on the head no matter how big they got. Sure, she might not have remembered my name all the time, but my mom calls me by my brother’s more often than not, so I didn’t really notice it.

It wasn’t until I graduated from high school and stayed at my grandparent’s while saving for college that I really noticed the difference.

She talked in circles, telling the same Bill Cosby story over and over. Her wit would still appear in flashes, but she’d lost a step for sure. My grandfather did all of the housework.

I’ve come to learn that it is hard for all young adults to watch the ones they love getting older, but it’s doubly hard to watch someone loose themselves to a disease like Alzheimer’s.

My grandmother lives in a nursing home now. Her mind has forgotten how to walk, and she can no longer speak. She lies in bead and mumbles nonsensical syllables from lips that once spouted wisdom and wit in equal measure.

When I was younger, my grandmother’s disease made me sad. Over the past few years, that sadness has been supplemented with barbs of anger.

My dad used to say his mother had the Red Phone to God; meaning when she prayed, amazing things happened. I’m angry because God in his infinite wisdom saw fit to let his servant suffer.

My brother told me once that he couldn’t remember a time when grandma wasn’t sick. I’m angry because my brother should have known the sharp, wonderful woman who would spend hours indulging in a young boys fantasy world.

 Selfishly, I’m angry because one day the doctor may tell me that my brain is rotting, and over the course of a few years I will lose everything that makes me, me.

I’m afraid if I do fall victim to this enemy, I will become a violent, cruel and spiteful person, a terror to those whom I love most. Alzheimer’s has done worse to better men than I.

But not to Jeannette Ingram.

It is said that no man can know what is in the heart of another, but from day one, my grandmother faced this terrible burden with faith and grace. I’ve seen fear in her as she felt memories slipping away from her, but never bitterness, never spite.

Her grace and unwavering faith, even in the grips of this terrible disease she set an example of righteousness and humility for all of us to follow. I’m far from perfect, but her voice in the back of my head has kept me from making some huge mistakes in my life.

During the early stages of her sickness, grandma would often joke, “I’ll outlive you all. I won’t know who I am, or where I am, but I’ll outlive you.”

Even now I still sort of believe it.

If you would like to help those afflicted with progressive medical conditions please visit the Gracious Goodbyes website http://www.graciousgoodbyes.org.