I'm going to see Gran tomorrow; she had a fall week before last in M&S and she's 87 next week, so I'm going to wish her happy birthday and also to check up on her. I find these days I'm constantly worrying about her in the back of my mind - will she fall, will she hurt herself with her failing eyesight, will she have another stroke, will she get a chest infection which coupled with her emphysema be really dangerous, will she have heart failure????? Questions which of course I cannot answer but plague me in that part of the night where the darkness allows all those thoughts through which are blocked by the business of the day.
My gran is my only grandparent I have left: my grandad died when I was twelve, Great Gran at fourteen, Grandad at sixteen and Grandma a week before my nineteenth birthday (thick and fast for a few years but those four are just the tip of the ice berg for grief and loss in those years - a subject for another blog at another time). She means the world to me although she drives me mad at the same time. As she ages she gets more belligerent, more critical, more narrow minded. She also is kind and loves her family to the ends of the world.
I watched Grandma slowly disappear to Alzheimer's over about eleven years and at times I'm not being overly dramatic when I say it damn near killed me. The idea of watching Grans body slowly give out on her over time breaks my heart. It's already doing that - her stroke, her emphysema, something wrong with her heart, rheumatoid arthritis. I just don't know how I'm going to manage to go through this again. And look after my lovely Mum at the same time who is terrified of what's happening.
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