I was just reminded by something that was mentioned elsewhere of the time I called my grandparents to let them know... I forget, actually, whether it was the after-action report on the Great Brain Adventure, 10 years ago, or when I was diagnosed with MS a couple of years later. Something neurological, anyway.

Calling my grandparents on the phone was always a bit of an adventure, because Gramp is, and has been for years, pretty much as deaf as a post, but Gram hated talking on the phone, so would pretty much only do so when she could absolutely not avoid it, and then only for the absolute minimum necessary. As an example, here is a complete transcript of the last telephone conversation I had with her:

GRAM
Hello?

ME
Hi, Gram, it's Ben. Just called to wish you a happy birthday.

GRAM
Well, thank you, dear. Bye now.

(click)

On this particular occasion, she didn't come to the phone at all, but Gramp had his hearing aid in, so he was more or less able to cope with the phone, and I gave him the short version of what I'd learned from the doctors about my neurological woes. At which point the following ensued:

GRAMP
(deadpan)
Are we absolutely sure it's not syphilis?

GRAM
(shouting at him in the background)
Leonard!

GRAMP
(still deadpan)
Your grandmother wanted me to ask that.

GRAM
(utterly indignant)
Leonard!!

A random fond memory. She's gone now, of course, and he's fading, so it's nice to remember them as they were.

(Mercifully, thus far it seems Gramp has the kind of Alzheimer's where you still know who you are, who everyone else is, and where you are, but each day is filled with bemusement and repetition. I say mercifully because that's bad, but I would submit that it's not as bad as the kind where everyone is a stranger, you're trapped in an unfamiliar place, and everything that happens is terrifying and incomprehensible. Also, more than once over the course of the past 14 months, I have caught myself reflecting that if he had chosen a time to plunge headlong into dementia and lose track of everything that is happening outside of Old Folks' Jail, he could hardly have picked a better one.)

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
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