Bittersweet Reflections

It's been a busy day and I fully intended to get this done early and get into bed. But no matter how many mice I have slaving away on plans that they lay to the best of their rodential ability, they continue to gang agley.

We went down to see my grandparents this afternoon--the amusingly named Grandma Quack-Quack and Paw-Paw (Mike Nelson has more than one bad thing to say about people who retain childish nicknames for their relatives long into adulthood; I cannot fault him for this, yet calling my grandmother Grandma Lorraine would ring as falsely in my ears as calling my father "Anthony." It's been a rough few years; my grandfather is in the advancing stages of Alzheimer's and its showing more and more. He tells many stories these days about things that did not actually ever happen to him, wild tales fraught with people getting arrested for not showing him the proper respect, a chain of gas stations he managed and for which people still walk up to him on the street and thank him, and his righting the wrongs of an unfair world. He recognizes some people but inconsistently, and he often distrusts both my father and I, possibly because he thinks we're other than we are. My grandmother is a stubborn thing and they just don't want him going into long-term care, so he's still at home despite mobility and increasing confusion problems.

It's a sad little house down there. Grandpa took care of everything, from home repairs to yardwork. Now it's just not done and the place is falling apart. It doesn't get cleaned often, since my aunt (who lives with them) was injured a year or two ago and my grandparents are just not capable of keeping up. The house that I recall so fondly from my youth is dying away, both literally and figuratively. My father goes down when he can to help out, as does an uncle who lives nearby, but they need more constant assistance which they will neither accept nor can they afford.

So we enjoy what time we can. My grandfather is quite loquacious with my sister and Joanna--he doesn't always recognize them as relatives, but he is pleased enough to have pretty young women listen to his stories. The boys played in the blow-up pool and ran about the front and back yards, and everyone got to hold Madeline and she didn't put up a fuss. Grandma and my aunt were happy to have company, so some good came out of it.

This post has a sad tone, I know, though I had no idea that this was what would come out when I sat down. Prodigious thoughts are ramping about my brain and heart these days, and one day, perhaps, I'll make sense of them. I think God is moving in my life in a big way, though it remains to see in what direction and at what velocity I may eventually exit this eccentric orbit. That little book I mentioned yesterday may help--I'll try to fill in tomorrow.

At a reasonable hour, no less.