I just woke up from a really wonderful dream. I was in my grandmother's old house (which was a pristine 1970's treasure situated on a hilltop overlooking the pacific ocean). But nothing in the house was right. The washing machine blocked the doorway to the laundry room. Fistfuls of her jewelry were scattered around in the crevices of the house. Showers were loaded with empty bottles of every type of shampoo. The covers of my bed wouldn't fold down. Bathroom floors were flooded.
When I arise in the morning, my mood and the flow of my thoughts for the rest of the day are dependent on what cinema was playing in my head throughout the night. I have excellent dream recall and obviously place a lot of meaning on what I experienced in slumber.
This weekend we drove down to Laguna Beach to get away from the heat and stagnation at home. More than anything I wanted to sneak into my grandmother's gated former community and dash for the private beach to visit the tidepoles. It disturbs me that I can't visit there anymore. When I was a child, that was my favorite place to escape.
When my grandmother was in her early stages of alzheimer's, I lived with her for a while. She would come in and out of lucid states. When she was going through dementia, she would talk with my grandfather, who passed away about 20 years before. And when she was lucid, she would tell me what it was like to "lose your mind".
Apparently, losing your mind is like having goblins in your brain. There's a part that knows the chatter is out of place. They nibble at your thoughts and whisper in your ears. Sometimes you see them in a light that looks like smoke or shadows. But sometimes you're happy to have them because they stave off lonliness.
She would tell me stories about when she was twelve and staying in Greece. Then she would say, cigarette sloping off her fingers, "I was a loner. But I can be a bitch. I'm a Leo, so I'm going to fight you. But I've never really needed people."
She'd tell the stories over and over again, each time as fresh to her as the last.
And though she knew I was about to relocate to Ireland, she would forget. Then, somebody would mention it to her and she would fly into a flurry that involved passing me loads and loads of cash.
I would take her to lunch at least once a week. And once a week she would get her nails and hair done.
But everything fell apart when she forgot why I was there and insisted on getting behind the wheel of her great and mighty Cadillac to drive herself to the bank. She was yelling at me that she was not a child. My mom and aunt assured me over the phone that I should let her go instead of invoking violence...maybe it would teach her a lesson if she got lost.
But despite the great haze of her brain, she successfully returned home within the hour, triumphant - and forgetful of her abusive and threatening departure.
That's the hardest thing about loving someone who is "losing their mind". You haven't lost yours. Not yet. So you remember all the strangeness of their behavior. You remember watching them disappear into a world that doesn't exist. You remember standing by helplessly as the personality separates from the person.
But for the most part, I'm so grateful for the time I spent in that great and crumbling house. Although I'm so sad when I think about it - and though I dream about it frequently, that was a time when I learned a bit more about compassion.
I miss Yia Yia so much. I miss being a granddaughter. The connection of knowing who's come before you is so fragile. So instead of plowing through hours and days anymore, I can only visit in veiled and overwhelming dreams.
And oddly, it still feels wonderful.
T.
