I know, it's a strange title, but stick with me.
My earliest memories of my maternal grandmother were of visiting her house and at the end of the visit we would find things missing that we had brought with us, toys, keys, purses. My aunts who were her caretakers always knew where they were, they were in her petaquilla a Spanish word for an old-fashioned steamer trunk. I thought my grandmother was just putting things away for safe keeping. No, this was just a symptom, keep reading.
My grandmother was a smart lady and a believer in tough love! I remember once, when I was a little girl, I had a fingernail that I had smashed in a door; it was almost ready to fall off, just hanging there, but I would not let anyone touch it. My grandmother asked to see it and I right away put my hand behind my back, she kept asking and promised she only wanted to look at it, she would not touch it. My mom warned me to be respectful, so I tentatively reached my hand out to my grandmother and she yanked that little fingernail off before I had a chance to blink or register pain! Everyone laughed at the look of astonishment on my face and off I went to rejoin my cousins and play.
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| My Maternal Grandmother Tomasa, my mother is her namesake |
Several years later we visited my grandmother who lived with her two daughters that were her caretakers. I remember arriving and seeing her in her wheelchair, her gnarled fingers clutching the arm rails. My mom hugged her as did my dad and siblings but I was fearful, my mom insisted. This was not the grandmother that I remembered, she had never been a very affectionate grandmother, being rather stern and serious as you can tell from the picture above; but now she wasn't even really there, she was muttering strange things and looking down, she never looked up, even when her daughter, my mother, her baby, the youngest in the family, walked in.
My mother was getting upset that I would not greet my grandmother so I forced myself to go up to my grandmother and reached out my arms to her. I led head first, not wanting really to put my body at risk of getting too close to her, in case I had to take off running. Big mistake...she grabbed my ponytail and started moving her arm left then right, then left again and my little legs struggled to keep up with her arm and I began hitting her, her legs, arms, I wasn't really aiming, just trying to save myself. I was screaming and crying and terrified!
My aunts grabbed her arm and held it steady while they pried her death grip off my ponytail, finger by finger until I fell at her feet, crying and sobbing and my mom reached down, pulled me up, swatted me on my butt and told me to never hit my grandmother again.
I didn't know it then, but I know it now, my grandmother had Alzheimer's Disease and it was pretty advanced by this time. She got gradually worse and eventually died from it.
She died from it and she also lost a son and three daughters from it. My mom has told us for years that she was going to get Alzheimer's it runs in her family. We kept reassuring her that she would not and she would get angry with us. I think to her it was a badge of honor. Her people died of Alzheimer's and dammit, she would too.
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| Mom in red was about 5 years ago, the older picture is when she met my dad around 1956'ish |
Mom just turned 87 this December. She still walks and talks and does her own laundry and cooks her own food. She loves shopping and watching YouTube videos about beading and jewelry making. She makes beautiful bracelets and earrings and rosaries. She sews blankets, quilts, bags, hats, dresses, almost anything you can think of, she can sew it. She still keeps track of her four kids and keeps us in line and that's not an easy task!
She has a mind like a steel trap, she doesn't forget anything. I'm so happy that Alzheimer's didn't get her, even if it is the disease of her people, the chain had to be broken along the way. I'm hoping all four of her children, their children and their children's' children will never get that awful disease.
