However, because I am 26 and I haven't experienced any of this before, I feel really lost about it all. My grandpa ... well, when I visit him now I can see that he's the same Grandpa Pat, that he's there on the inside still but he can't always form the right words and he can't walk and it's all happening so fast.
And his heart is breaking.
And my heart is breaking.
And it can't be stopped. Dementia, old age, it's all a slow descent into ... ?
Two months ago he could scuffle around from his chair to the bathroom, he was having an entire conversation with me about where he grew up and the trouble he'd get in with his friends. He was eating Chinese food I had bought for him without much issue other than the occasional dropped cashew, and cashews are impossible to eat with a fork anyway, so who can really blame him for that? Nobody, that's who. Sure he was declining, but he was fine. He was just. fine.
But he wasn't. And he's not. And somewhere I know that that's true. But maybe if I just keep going back to visit, and make a point to let him get his words out, and tell him to try to skootch up in his wheelchair and to be nice to the nurses and to let him feed himself even if it's downright frustrating to let those apples fall off one more time, and figure out when he's doing physical therapy, surely there will be enough love and determination to fix it. To make him better so that we don't have to go through this anymore.
But even if it worked and there was enough love to pull him back and to fix him and to un-break his heart... that's not going to stop Death.
How does one keep living when there's no future to look forward to? What kind of mental shift does one have to go through to somehow be happy or at peace knowing that life from now on is this nursing home bed, and this flickering tv? That it's ending. And how does a loved one watch and participate?
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