A Healthy Dose of Insanity

               I have now had the displeasure of watching my last two remaining grandparents slowly slide into insanity. I don’t know the technical differences between Alzheimer’s and dementia. All I know is that their minds do not work like they once did. At first this was a very difficult thing to cope with. It became a great fear of mine that I would also someday find myself in a similar state. Eventually, however, I came to glean great graces from the situation.

               At its heart, insanity seems like a terrible thing. The person that you once loved somehow ceases to be. The mind undergoes a death, and the body remains to slowly decay as well. In order to cope, one must have a sense of humor. From the outside, some people would see such humor as a cruelty, but on the inside it is a necessity.

               The other day my grandfather was irritated that he couldn’t call his son. The tragic thing was that the son he wanted to call was sitting across the table and he couldn’t recognize him. I offered to let Grandpa use my cell phone to call the house, before my father knew who was calling, he picked up the phone and said hello. My grandfather shouted “ELLO?! IS DIS MIKE?!”. They proceeded to have a brief conversation from across the dining table while clutching their respective telephones. We couldn’t help but laugh at the entire situation, but the conversation succeeded in calming Grandpa for the afternoon.

               I think that a person’s true character is revealed through such a state. You can tell what a person worried about: the return of their spouse from the fields, losing of their wallet, losing livestock, and the list goes on and on. My grandmother would often wake us up at 2am with shouts of “HAIL MARY!” It takes a very special kind of person to always default back to prayer in their times of confusion. That is the kind of person my grandma was, and I don't know if I would have ever had the grace of knowing it if it had not been for her illness.

               Upon getting aggravated over not being able to find his eyeglasses, I proceeded to take my Grandfathers glasses from off of his face, show them to him, and then put them back on him. Immediately the worry was relieved. More often than not, however, we are powerless to relieve any anxiety. I feel the worst when my grandfather is visibly distressed and inconsolable.

               But its about that time that Grandpa put his socks on his hands… and I can’t help but laugh.