| 'I'll
be loving you, always' was grandpa's gift
By Megan M. Roe
November 21, 2005 | My
grandma never went anywhere without her lipstick on.
She was the type of woman who cleaned
out her kitchen cabinets every few months. She was the
lady that took meals to the elderly and held all the
parties in the neighborhood. She was a bright leader
who gave wonderful talks in church and read every book
on the planet. She was perfect.
Growing up next to my grandparents'
home, I remember grandpa chastising her for silly little
things. She would just laugh him off. She always spoke
her mind but she was never offended. She was so confident.
Then she started dropping dishes.
Her silky handwriting, which I had always tried to imitate,
began to look more like children's scribblings. She
had always walked like a lady, now she wobbled back
and forth on her feet, trying to keep her balance.
Only 65, and she's already
slowing down, we all thought.
Though we knew it was more than that.
She started telling stories right in the middle of them,
like she had been carrying on conversation in her head.
When she was with large groups it became difficult to
understand her jumbled mix of words and phrases. When
one-on-one with her, she was much easier to understand.
The woman, who had once been so intelligent, couldn't
play the simplest of games at family activities. She
started feeling ill most of the time.
Then came the diagnosis: progressive
supranuclear palsy -- a rare brain disease with no known
treatment.
"It says I'm going to die of
choking," she bluntly told me one day, obviously having
read up on her disease.
It was difficult to see the woman
who had always been in control, fall backwards all the
time and eat like a 5-year-old -- her food always ending
up on her face or the floor. She lay awake worried every
night, partly because the disease kept her up and partly
because she couldn't stop thinking about it. My grandfather
had to do everything they had usually done together
-- cook, clean and iron the laundry, clean the house,
weed the garden.
Though the woman had lost so much
weight that she looked gaunt, and her mouth hung open
in a stupor most of the time, she still never left home
without her lipstick. I suppose it was the only little
shred of dignity she felt she had left.
Seeing her in a state of disarray
and very close to death had always given me such sorrow.
Yet my feelings changed the day my 50-year-old aunt
got married. The dinner afterward gave us all time to
watch the happy newlyweds and listen to funny stories
about them. Grandma refrained from speaking and just
smiled the entire time. When we thought the program
was through, my grandfather announced that he was going
to sing a special musical number for the happy couple.
When the sweet tenor voice began
singing the words to "Always," I had to hold back my
sobs, only to hear others choking up all around me.
The words to the song from the 1930s had been sung many
times during my grandparents' marriage. It was their
song.
As grandma sat and listened with
her mouth wide-open, tears running down her face and
dress hanging off of her small frame, she looked as
beautiful as ever. It didn't need to be announced. Grandpa
wasn't singing to the newlyweds. Everyone in the large
room knew he was singing to his love, who was slowly
slipping away from him.
As the moment passed that night,
I realized that no matter how many accomplishments and
how much self-perfection we attain in this life, the
only real thing that we can take on to the next life
is the love of our family and friends. Life isn't forever,
but true love is.
NW
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