My grandmother passed away 4 years ago today from Alzheimer’s Disease. Admittedly, while it was very hard watching the disease progress, it didn’t make me angry like it did to watch the same disease take Mitzi. I suppose it was because Nina, (as I affectionately called my grandmother…apparently as a toddler I had an affinity for Columbus’ ships?), was 92 when she died, and had lived a long and full life. She got to see her children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren grow. She got to travel. Retire. And have nearly 33 more years of life than my friend did. I guess the unfairness made me more angry at Mitzi’s Alzheimer’s than Nina’s.
Still, it was not easy watch her memories and abilities slowly slip away. We were so fortunate to be able to take her out of assisted living where she could live in our home for 4 years before moving in with my aunt after her retirement. She lived another 4 years and it took my aunt and my mom to take care of her every day the last year of her life. It was so different watching my grandmother fall victim to Alzheimer’s vs helping Mitzi walk through it. Their lives were in such different places. But it was still the same disease. It still had the same heartbreaking goal.
I made this video a few days after my grandmother’s memorial service because I simply could not keep this phenomenal story to myself. The event that occurred the night after her service is still one of the greatest stories of a loved one letting someone know, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are whole and happy again and that Alzheimer’s might have won the battle for the body, but it did not win the war for the soul!