Every day, my grandmother has to fall in love with a new person. She wakes up with zero expectations of how to communicate with this new person, how to pacify this new person, and how to cater to this new person she didn’t choose to marry. Originally, Jean fell in love with Tony Petruzzi after only 4 months. Only a month into her marriage, she got pregnant with her first-born and was thrown into motherhood unexpectedly. She had another child and assumed the role of a full-time mother. Daily tasks included cooking for the children, cleaning up after their messes, tying their shoes, and making sure they didn’t leave the house without her authority.
Today, nearly 60 years later, she is doing the same thing for her husband. Her husband’s brain cells are dying every day and it’s like raising a child all over again. The only caveat is, he cannot learn. A child would learn after a few lessons on how to tie their shoes, wipe their face, and use the bathroom. As one would potty-train their child, he has to be helped in the bathroom, wearing a diaper at all times, but will never know how to use a toilet properly again. He can no longer do any of those without any help. This degenerative brain disease “destroys neurons and their connections in parts of the brain involved in memory…” (nia.nih.gov). It doesn’t just destroy neurons and their connections for the family, but a person’s entire identity, love, and passion for their life they lived until they couldn’t anymore.
More morbidly, this brain disease resonates with the image of a parasite wiggling through the grooves of the brain finding every opportunity to ruin the man who used to be. Even though there is no such thing medically involved with this disease, I see this foreigner attacking my grandpa’s brain making him curse horrible words at my grandmother, bruise her arms, argue in circles without a solution, and forget the moments he can no longer cherish. She has to raise her husband all over again only for this parasite to degrade her actions and make her feel like every task goes undone. Closing a door only for a stranger to open it again, feeding that same stranger only for them to spit out their food, changing a stranger’s diaper only for them to dirty it, again and again, every day.
Moments of clarity are no longer available. He is only able to recognize his wife, the last leg he is able to stand on mentally. Once, a few months ago, before the channel on the T.V. finally closed and the static finally turned to black, he stared at me and said, “I know I’ve lived here a long time, and I know who I am, but…” He didn’t finish his sentence, but I couldn’t help but feel like the parasite couldn’t find a crevice to reside in and my grandpa was able to speak to me one last time. I wonder if he was going to tell me he didn’t know what was wrong with him. Or if he knew that he had Alzheimer’s at all. Now, we are flooded with the same stories, mannerisms, and habits only my grandmother knows how to tend to.
His stories, which he retells with great passion and vulgar language can be described as a reflection of a real moment that his ego enhances to pose him as the victor in the end. A subtle discrepancy can be amplified into a violent fight with six men on the beach whom he beat up and sent to the hospital. He tells these stories from the comfort of his worn, brown, leather armchair, sitting in what’s left of his muscles that have worn away and his bones that protrude through his clothes.
Anger and violence are not the only emotions and qualities he still possesses. He still has child-like moments where he makes duck noises or wiggles his ears to amuse guests, things he would do for us as children to get a laugh. He still gushes over how beautiful his wife is who keeps a smile that he still gets to treasure every day. Home is the only place he recognizes, which is probably why he always wants to stay there and never wants to leave that warn out armchair. It’s so beautiful that even in his confused state, he can still recognize a place that he is able to identify with safety, love, and comfort. As much as I would love for him to feel this way for the remainder of his life, he needs more than his wife raising him every day.
She too is worn and tired. She is only a year younger than he is, 88. With some help from nurses, she manages but refuses to put him in an assisted living care facility. Hence, her bruised arms. Her sons have worked hard enough in life to live with more than just comfort, so there is no financial burden for her to worry about if it really came down to it. She compromises the quality of her own life for that of her husband, who is no longer her husband.
His heart is extremely healthy. According to doctors, it’s a lot healthier than one would expect from a man of his age. They say his heart won’t be the thing that kills him, but this disease will cause his body to slowly forget how to function.
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