My grandmother doesn't remember my name

My grandmother was born in Georgia during the Great Depression, in 1938. She was the eldest of five children, 2 girls and 3 boys. Her parents were floor sanders by trade, with her father being 20 years her mother's senior. The story goes that he was friends with the parents of his future wife, looked down into her crib when she was just a baby, and said that he would marry her one day. Of course this upset my great great grandmother and set a prescience of trauma and abuse for future generations.

My great grandparents worked long hours and took many fishing trips, leaving my grandmother to care for her brothers and sister in their absence. She did tell me of her fondest memory with her family, which was a trip to Key West during the 1950s. She said her family all sat at a picnic table and ate their Christmas dinner and it was the best time she had with them. When her parents weren't working they were partaking in habitual alcohol abuse making their bodies hagard long before their time. The alcohol abuse that my grandmother watched permanently ingrained in her mind a distaste for alcohol and those that overindulged. To her, a glass of wine was too much. All throughout my childhood, I never even saw alcohol in the house except the few times I made Margaritas with my mother. Grandma's curiosity got the better of her then, but only a sip.

My grandmother's childhood was rough. She grew up in a very shabby one room house on the family farm. She spent many days picking tobacco and picking up after her siblings. At night, she said the mosquitoes would come up through the cracks in the floor boards. But she slept well under the tings of the rain on the tin roof. She did not grow up with central air, or even running water in her house. She talked of her trips to the bathroom at night and her fear of snakes biting her "where the sun don't shine". She took a bath in a tub outside with her siblings until she was a teenager. She walked nearly two miles to her bus stop every day, with her siblings in tow. She only had shoes to wear during the school year and winter. Otherwise, she and her siblings would go barefoot. Any free time she had would be spent playing in the small creek that ran through the farm. However, she never did learn to swim. I didn't understand why she didn't care for water when I was growing up, as she had moved to Florida in the 1980s, until the day I learned the reason. When she was just a girl, she was playing in the water when her uncle, her father's brother, held her underwater. Of course, once her mother noticed, she ran to her and ripped him off. My grandmother's sister told me that he even tried to drown her too. He would go on to murder his wife in cold blood during the height of World War II. But that's a story for another time. My grandmother would grow up to not go more than ankle deep in any body of water. Making play time in our family pond or trips to the beach awkward for me. Once my grandmother graduated high school, she quickly moved on to nursing school. She told me that the first break from school, she went home like all her class mates. And while they were enjoying their holiday, she was made to sand floors with her parents. She never went home on break again. She went on to become a nurse and started working in the local hospital. She met my grandfather there, making a bet with her friend to see who would get him first. He was in the army at the time, and had a charming smile with bright gray eyes. I would go on to inherit those eyes when I was born. My grandparents married December 28th, 1958. He was 24 and she was 20. He went on to be stationed in Hawaii. My grandmother was ecstatic. She wanted to get out of the hot dust of Georgia and go make a life in the beautiful tropics. Just as she was packing to move there, my grandfather was discharged from the army and sent home to her. Her dreams of paradise, crushed. So she continued working in the hospital.

My grandmother didn't want children. She had raised her 4 siblings pretty much by herself and felt that she had been a mother long enough. Plus, she was a career woman and wanted to help her patients. My grandmother would end up getting pregnant with her first child, Bobby and giving birth to him early 1961, after much pressure from my grandfather. Bobby looked like a carbon copy of his father. My grandfather was overjoyed, my grandmother underwhelmed. There wasn't a good understanding of post partum depression. She would go on to miscarry another child and then give birth to my mother Sharon in 1967. She continued to be a nurse during this time, with my grandfather working as a manager at the local bakery factory. When my mother was young, they moved to Alabama as my grandfather was relocated to a bakery there. My grandmother continued to work as a nurse, moving her way into the operating room (OR) where she loved her work. She was a natural caretaker. But she worked a lot, picking up many shifts leaving my grandfather to raise the children. My grandfather didn't mind, as he loved his children. My grandmother would come home very tired and not have much time for her family other than to run her home with a perceived iron fist. The house was to stay as clean as the operating room she so meticulously maintained. This gave her the cold and authoritarian demeanor that my mother would describe growing up. She was the disciplinarian. It was true that my grandmother was an authoritarian figure. She was not one to give hugs except for when they were initiated by another party. She often had stiff posture and would rarely crack a smile or a joke. She also had a defensive sarcastic wit and was quick to throw in sharp jabs to mess with your psyche. In my adulthood though, I learned to understand that she wasn't cold. She was exhausted. My mother often described me as having her many similarities to her. Which, if the case, she must have also been uncomfortable in her skin and overstimulated. When my mother reached high school, a tragedy struck. My great grandmother, my grandmas mother, passed away at the age of 62. Suicide. This left a lasting impression on my grandmother, who had to help clean up after the mess. There were no bio hazard or crime scene cleaners then like there are now. Suicide would become a very touchy subject for her along with anything related to mental health. This of course made my seasonally depressed mother and my chronically depressed self have issues when days were harder. Keeping our feelings to ourselves. My grandmother would go on to move to Florida with my grandfather in the 1980s. My mother would join them, graduating high school and then going to vocational school. My grandmother became a nurse in the hospital an hour away from her home. By the 1990s, my grandmother had been working for 30+ years and enjoying her time at the local hospital. My grandfather had retired and then began building her dream home in 1996. It was a kit home from Sears. He cut the trees down himself, sanded the floors, and spared no expense and effort in making a beautiful home. A month after the roof was finished, I made my appearance into the world. I was born in the very hospital that my grandmother worked in. My mother was very sick when I was born, with my grandmother ultimately saving her life during my birth, and I also had many health complications. My grandfather would take care of me and my sick mother during the day while my grandmother worked at the hospital. I wasn't the first grandchild. I was the third. The two others lived in Alabama with my uncle and were a far drive to see. Making the majority of the attention on me, as the closest. My grandmother ended up becoming a home nurse at a local agency and would drive around to the surrounding counties taking care of people. She would sometimes bring me along on days that my grandfather was busy either fishing or tending to our farm. My grandmother finally retired from nursing in her early 70s. In August 2016, short of their 58th wedding anniversary, my grandfather passed away. Since he was the one that was home most often, he had always been the one to take care of the finances, the house, the little things. My grandmother's world crumbled. At 78, she didn't know how to pay the water bill or check her bank account. My mother had to quit her job and move back to town to be with my grandmother to get her on her feet. My grandfather was her world. And that's when we found out. My grandmother had been in the very early stages of memory loss. Dementia. My grandfather had kept it quiet. Which was common, he barely told my mother when he had a series of strokes. But this meant that his death sent her into a downward tailspin. They say that you can die of a broken heart. I think that a broken heart can also deteriorate the mind in ways unimaginable. I was 19 when my grandfather passed away. My grandfather was my hero. My father figure where my biological father and step father were failing. So my heart had a hole in it, and it still does. But my grandmother couldn't cope. She couldn't speak without crying and couldn't hold a conversation. Her heart shattered.

My mother has spent the last six years with her. Taking her to doctors appointments, sitting with her, cooking, cleaning, taking care of our home and properties. Learning to be my grandfather all so my grandmother would feel at ease. My grandmother's hearing started to fade and now it's very hard for her to hear a normal volume conversation. She can't remember to eat on her own. She doesn't know where she is and refuses to believe where she is. She always tries to go "home". She isn't allowed to drive. She can't bathe without help. She can't eat without observing someone to know how to eat. She doesn't remember to take her medicine. Her conversations and questions repeat. She runs away and gets lost. She goes outside at 3 am and leaves doors open. She doesn't understand basic conversations.

But one thing that has come from this is a total personality change. She wants hugs and kisses and love for the first time in my life. And she gets an abundance. My husband and I bought a house that is 25 minutes away from my mother and her. And we see her very often now. She is always happy to see us and wishes we visit soon when we leave. She comes to all holidays and we have dinner with her too. She wants to be around us and just enjoys the company. Getting flowers makes her cry. She is so gentle and fragile. I simply adore her.

But she doesn't know my name.