SO I WAS TRYING TO BRING SOMETHING OUT TO WRITE ABOUT. IT HAS BEEN OVER A MONTH SINCE I POSTED ANYTHING. WE HAVE HAD A ROUGH PATCH AND WE WILL PRESS ONWARD. SO I DECIDED TO REACH BACK TO THE EARLIEST ARCHIVES. This first ran on speaktherights.com on this date in 2014 the year we started this.
One of the toughest things I have ever had to witness is watching my dear wife, Carrie, have a tough time of it as she cared for her grandparents. Both of them had Alzheimer or dementia or whatever you want to call it.
Her grandparents had outlived their own children, one son died of a heart ailment in 1982 and the other, Carrie’s father, died of a heart attack in 1999.
To this day I can remember the moment in time as I pulled into her grandparent’s driveway as I was about to head to Indianapolis to watch a minor league baseball game with a friend from Jackson County. Carrie told me her grandmother had been acting strange. Carrie’s demeanor told me something was bad wrong. It was. She never got her old grandma back again. This was August 2003.
Slowly but surely things got worse… and worse.
Her grandma’s behavior became erratic and even hateful at times.
Looking back on what we call “the Missing Years”, I have no idea how we made it thorough that time had it not been for the grace of God to help us along the way.
For a period of years, Carrie and I…mostly she, stayed with her grandparents after we got home from work until it was time for them to go to bed. We stayed with them on weekends also. Her grandmother’s behavior and health got worse and worse as the years went on.
Eventually we had to employ a friend of the family to stay with them during the day until we got home to take over. Again, looking back, I don’t know how we did it and kept our own sanity. Thanks be to God.
On December 18, 2006, we had no choice but to take Carrie’s grandmother to the hospital for treatment. I remember it was a Monday and the Colts were playing the Bengals on Monday Night Football as I waited in a hospital waiting room. Carrie’s good friend Michelle, who lived near Carrie’s grandparents, was at the hospital with us that night.
The worst of it was going back to tell her grandpa that his wife was not coming home. That was my job.
Her grandfather did not handle it well. He fell apart and soon he too was admitted to the hospital and like his wife, he was soon in a nursing home with her.
He died Easter Sunday, 2007.
His wife of many years died on Sunday, June 8, 2008.
When it was over, Carrie and I had to reintroduce ourselves to each other. Sure, we got away now and again for a few days here and there…but our minds were never far from her grandparent’s kitchen table during this time. Our hanging in there together only further galvanized an already solid steel union.
To this day I miss walking into her grandparents house to have her grandfather ask, “You want a cup of coffee?” I didn’t drink the stuff at the time unless it was 5 degrees outside.
I also miss her grandmother asking me if I wanted a sandwich or a bowl of chili. At her best, she always had something of a culinary nature at the ready. I miss that. I know Carrie does too.
We do what we do. We press onward.
What prompted these words?
Well… I was looking at a picture I took of Carrie at a Bob Seger concert in 2011 at The Yum! Center in Louisville. Though this was years after our sad ordeal with her grandparents was over, it still reminds me of the first time we saw Bob Seger… it was December 12, 2006 at Freedom Hall…just six days before we took her Grandma away from her home…the house she was born in. Carrie and I so loved that concert. Before that, seeing Bob Seger was just a dream of ours. We loved the respite it provided from one of the most turbulent times we have ever known. The days that followed were even worse.
But…we pressed onward. We lived to tell the story. For Carrie and me, the story always includes music.
I was totally in awe of the the picture I took of Carrie at the Bob Seger concert in 2011. It reminded me of Seger’s Live Bullet album cover from 1975. I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. It’s still pretty close. To me it a perfect symbol of the hectic time we spent with her grandparents…yet there is still a smile to be had in there somewhere…down on Mainstreet…speaking the rights.
Carrie at Seger in 2011.
Seger at Seger in 1975