Getting Older

I called my mom earlier this evening and during the course of the conversation we talked about my cute little grandmother. She is turning 90 this year and I am sad to say that she is losing her memory. The changes were gradual at first but now they are very noticeable. Lately she has been talking about buying a bus ticket and taking the Greyhound to Minnesota to visit people she knew back when. My mom has to remind her that they are all gone now and that her parents' house was plowed over a few years back to make room for a subdivision. We are also horrified at the idea of my cute little germ phobic grandmother getting onto a bus full of drug addicts and other random, possibly stinky people and how miserable she would be. The Greyhound just isn't what it used to be... Keep your fingers crossed that she doesn't actually follow through with this plan.

Apparently Grandma has been reading some of the old letters that Grandpa wrote (possibly from the time that they were dating). She told my mom that she couldn't believe that she hadn't read them before...

Poor Grandma had some dental work done a few months ago. The dentist put a bridge in her mouth. She constantly forgets that it is there and has a hard time flossing it because the floss doesn't work the way it used to.

I hope that I will be blessed with a long and healthy life but when I am older, I hope that I don't have to lose my mind.

My husband has been helping his 93-year-old grandfather a lot lately. Grandpa K lost his balance a few days ago and took a pretty bad tumble. Turns out that he had another bladder infection and the ulcers are back, so these afflictions basically threw his entire body off track. When he fell, he slid the top of his hand across the carpet, opening up the tissue on on the fragile skin on his hand. He also hurt his leg, so he has been confined to bed for a while. Little-by-tiny bit he is gaining his strength, but the older a body gets the harder it is to get better...  After helping him get into bed a couple of nights ago, my husband decided to go to the kitchen to draw. He was pretty quiet for a while, which worried Grandpa, so Grandpa called him back to the bedroom because he thought that maybe my husband had gone to the bathroom and had a heart attack. Grandpa was so worried that he nearly tried to get out of bed to check up on him.

One thing that I admire about grandpa is that he is still as sharp as a tack. He has a great memory -- it's just too bad that his health is deteriorating so quickly... A few months ago an old girlfriend from 70+ years ago got in touch. Every now and then someone will take him down to the care center to visit with her. It is so cute to see him hold her hand and reminisce about the days long ago when they were young.