Yet another dream from my past dream log:

(originally written on 02-04-2004)
Last night was full of odd dreams. I'm only going to relate one though, and refer to another.

My maternal grandmother is in an assisted living home because she has Alzheimer's. She wanders a bit at night because the meds the doctors have prescribed make her drowsy and she dozes during the day. Lately I guess she's been doing a bit more wandering than the staff at Bel Aire is comfortable with and has been doing some inappropriate things, whatever they might be. My aunt won't tell us exactly.

This past Sunday we fasted for her that whatever is in her best interest will be done, whether that is by some miracle her behavior clears up, or we find an excellent nursing home to move her into if she becomes worse or if it is her passing on to join Grandpa and her family that has gone on before her.

Last night I stirred awake and settled on my side. It probably was just how the covers pulled against me, but a few minutes later it felt like someone had sat down on my bed near the bend of my legs and like something pressed into my back. I'll be the first to admit I let my imagination run wild a lot of the time, especially at night. I must of fallen asleep soon after, but it seemed like I was still awake. Have you ever had a dream where you thought you were awake, but you were really sleeping? I swear at the time it was my grandmother who had visited me and leaned over to give me a hug. She was her old, pleasant pudgy self...though it seemed she was in her nightgown 'cause she wasn't wearing her glasses. I hugged her back.

Wide awake now, I realize it must have been a dream, because I know she isn't dead. But it reminded me of when I dreamed(/was visited?) of/by my great-grandmother, Grannie three months after her death. I'd been stressed and worried she would not accept the gospel now that she was on zee other side. But in whatever form she visited me, I was reassured by her that all was well and she was learning the gospel slowly but surely. She was also in a pink nightie--the one she was buried in, but at the time I did not know what Nan and Paw Paw had buried her in.

I think perhaps it was a comforting by the Spirit (my dream of Grandma) that she will be ok. Maybe it was sort of a goodbye because I might not see her before she passes away. I dunno. I don't get the feeling she'll leave this life soon like I did from a dream I had nine months before Grannie's death. But I do get reassurance she'll be ok.

Grandma's still alive, over a year later. She's no longer walking, however, or associating with people as much. The Alzheimer's has taken its toll, plus a few other ailments she's had--namely a bloodclot that went to a lung. Ever since she's had that her left foot has turned in and become rigid, like she doesn't have any joints anymore. She's, of course, in a wheelchair and stares mostly off into space, I would almost say vacantly, but then you look into her eyes...and you know she's thinking, or reliving something. Watching her, you wonder what's going through her mind or where she is mentally. And when she does talk, she thinks she's 16 again or at her young married stage in life and tells whoever's visiting her about whatever long-term memory she's reliving at present.

She's...not going anywhere, except lil by lil getting worse with every small or semi-bad ailment that comes her way. I've said before Grandma's a shell, a shrunken-in, introspective shell of herself, and I guess in a sense this is true. Her spirit still resides within her body, but her mind is locked away from us. Looking at her yesterday (when Mom and I took time to visit her while we--the whole family minus Mike--were in Utah) I couldn't really say this. She's there...but she's not. She didn't really talk, except briefly to answer a few of Mom's questions about her day. She would focus in on us for a few moments and then be gone again. Two or three times her face would light up when she smiled, and my heart contracted painfully as love swelled, and I wished I could have put my arms around her and kissed her withered cheek. Tears threatened a couple of times and it was a miracle I held my composure. I didn't want Mom regretting bringing me along.

I have two friends who read this journal who have lost their grandmas within this year. I have felt for them, empathized with them, on their losses. One died from cancer, the other old age?, I think. This may sound callous, but I don't mean it to be--they were the lucky ones. True, Heather's grandmother's cancer was painful and slow as it took over her body. I'm not trying to minimalize it. But from the time of diagnosis to her death it was a span of almost two years? And with Emma's grandmother, her faculties weren't as good as they could have been for her age, but (if I remember right) she became ill and it was the illness which took her. She didn't linger long. They are now at peace and are beyond pain and suffering.

Mine isn't. As the doctor said, she could live five more minutes or 10 more years--as we all could. She's just lingering. She's there, but she's not. Sure, she's got people who look after her and take good care of her and who love her, but she's not living! She's just existing...and she's been existing merely for two years now. Before that it was the early stages of Alzheimer's, and before that a form of dementia. This has been going on for almost 22 years. Since soon after the death of my grandfather.

Despite my maudlin or angry-sounding tone, I'm glad I saw my grandma yesterday. I'm glad I saw her because, whether or not she knew or remembers I was there, I will. And I can't help but think or feel that somehow, somewhere, deep in the recesses of her mind, she knows we were there. Maybe not right now, but when her memory is restored upon her passing into the next life, she'll know. And it's a comfort to me.

I'm glad I saw her also, because now there will be no more wondering or slightly skewed visions of what she looks like from what her disease or various ailments have done to her from Mom's descriptions. Sometimes--more times than not--imagination makes things or views of people bigger or more skewed than they are in reality.

I'm glad I saw her because I may not see her again in this life.

moon phase