Grandma

My Grandmother was a wonderful person. She did however have her peculiararities. She believed her house was bugged by the government and would try to feed statues.

One day she took me to a table covered with small trinkets of all kinds. I remember a beautiful Hummel of the Virgin Mary in full color. She asked me to pick one thing off that table. The statue of the Virgin tempted me, but instead I took a small glass bird. My Grandmother had always loved birds.

Later when my Grandmother developed Alzheimer’s my sister and myself took turns sharing our room with her. At first one night Rachel would sleep on the sofa, and the next I would. My Grandmother would get up in the middle of the night and do things like cut up her blanket. I would sleep right through all of this, whereas my sister Rachel wouldn’t. So in the end I was sleeping on the sofa all the time. Each morning I would wake up to the songs of our parakeets. We had parakeets just like out Grandmother used to.

Later in my life I would end up doing artwork based on this memory. A bird caged in a nest; just like her disease caged her brain represented my Grandmother. The pain of watching my Grandmother suffering was always great within me, and something happening to my brain became one of my major fears. Her Alzheimer’s became so bad that in the end she forgot how to shallow correctly. I looked at my Grandmother not understanding what was wrong and I thought, “She looks thirsty.” So I would got her more water. My brother got mad at me for doing this and I said that water never hurt anyone. He responded that someone could drown in it.

After my Grandmother died and I heard she had forgotten how to shallow I thought my getting her water had killed her. I did not realize that the doctors could easily deal with that problem. I never told anyone this, except years later to a friend who would later get mad at me and accuse me of killing my Grandmother.

As for that glass bird, I kept it for year, and then one day it disappeared. My sister had a habit of throwing things out without asking. As for the Hummel, it was sold in a Garage Sale after my Grandfather dead. My mother often talks about how much she wishes she had kept it. As for my brain, about two years ago I developed Schizoaffective Bipolar Disorder. Happily Ever After!