After a Healthly Dose . . .

of pomegranate martinis . . . and because I have to tell someone.

I'm such a girl sometimes. I only cried once.

During the first episode. Of Grey's Anatomy. Because they got it right . . . the main character, her mother has Alzheimer's, and she goes to visit her . . . in the "facility". And she asks politely, "And who are you?" and she has to answer that she's her daughter.

My grandmother, she was always polite about that . . . everyday. "Sweety, and who are you again? I'm so sorry." And I would say, "My name is Emily." and she would say, "Really? I have a granddaughter named Emily." and then I would sometimes say "I know."

And they got the fidgeting right. Which is more painful really. The memory of the fidgeting. My grandmother would fidget endlessly. Scratch her temple. Fidget with her watch. Endlessly restless. As I suppose I would be, if I couldn't remember.

It was hard to tell, with my grandmother. She would keep the conversational topics general. The weather . . . how the kids were . . .

The rest of my mother's family didn't believe she was ill, even though she was very ill by the time she moved in with me. She couldn't remember that people needed to eat, by that point. Her brain had forgotten hunger. We would have the weekly fight about the bath. Baths are scary, slippery things.

And she couldn't remember who I was . . . so she thought I was a servant of some sort. And I miss her so much.

When I was a child, she taught me not to judge people. She was the most fun . . . I remember climbing the monkey bars, when she was well into her seventies. She was the most creative person I knew and the most "zen" like, for someone who grew up in a small town in Ohio. I loved her very much.

And it is the most painful thing . . . to watch someone disintegrate. Parts of her were still there, but never the whole . . . the loss of the whole. And watching the pain of my mother . . . at losing her mother in bits and pieces. And the pain of my grandmother, always such an independent person, knowing that she was dependant . . . being frustrated because she was dependant . . . and yet, keeping her grace through it all, even until the end.

So being graceful. What I need to remember. Living with grace. What my grandmother, Thelma, taught me. Kindness and grace.

And that life is too short not to have ice cream in between your waffles.