To my son Tommy and my daughters “the twins”,
Today, I took Roro to 7:30 Mass at Holy Family. It was her first time to attend Mass in person for roughly two years. Her absence was due to her health issues and the pandemic and all her co-morbidities. What was really surprising was when it came time to stand during Mass, except for one time where she decided she was a bit winded, she stood. I only counted two times that she rested her eyes, as well. It has been a long time that she attended Mass in such an engaging way.
It is a weird feeling when something has been so difficult, or just plain wrong, for so long and all of a sudden things change. This is the situation we are in with your Grandma Roro right now.
For the longest time, something has been wrong with Roro. She has been in a mental fog for at least the past six years and probably closer to a decade. I say six years for certain, because when your Grandpa Leo was starting to get worse with his brain cancer, we moved in our entire family to help take care of him and Roro. That was roughly 2015 or 2016. Roro had been having problems prior to us moving in that your grandpa had been dealing with, maybe for another half decade before. Right before he finally passed in 2017, I promised him to keep the family here to take care of your Grandma Roro. I even promised to try and be kind and compassionate considering her mental state, which I must confess I found very difficult at times. The moments of clarity Roro experienced since that time were few and far between. It was difficult and trying to say the least.
That is till about two weeks ago. All of a sudden like, she is back to being as sharp as a tac. Sure she has a bunch of medical issues, and she still has a bit of old age dottiness, but her mental acuity is far above the point where we were certain of advanced dementia or even Alzheimer’s. I mean the week before she asked me a dozen times “what is this?” as she held up a tv remote.
Now the doctors can’t explain the previous state or the change, though that doesn’t stop all of them from guessing. Each doctor’s guess seems wildly different. Your mother and I have our guess too. Was it meds? Was it the MS? Was it her diabetes? Was it her blood pressure? Was it her heart condition? Or was the change due to an honest to goodness fricking miracle? Who knows why?
But the point is, she is at a level that is far above her baseline for the past half decade. She is reasonable and engaging and aware. I know that saying such things seems wrong and means I didn’t see her in that light before. Unfortunately not saying such things would not make it any less true. I admit that dealing with her before made me cringe. Now your mother and I welcome her company and interactions. Don’t get me wrong, she still can be difficult and frustrating as hell, but that is a very different difficult than before.
It is such a blessing to you guys, her grandchildren, to know your Grandmother Roro in this manner. You guys loved her no matter what before, but now she can be active in your lives. I see her engaging, teaching, and even playing with you guys so much more. Her quality of life also increased exponentially. These past two weekends she has been able to attend a couple of Tommy’s basketball games. Around the house, she is engaged in a hobby again (puzzles, which has inspired the twins to try ever increasing difficult jigsaws themselves) and enjoys a few more trips out of the house, be it shopping or restaurants or Mass or high school reunion luncheons or what have you.
So here we are, with this sudden change from the prior condition which we had reluctantly accepted as the normal. I suppose we have a couple options. We can sit there in dread waiting for a (perhaps inevitable) return to the previous condition. Or, we can just forget every stressful moment from the past decade and enjoy this now found positive change every moment that we get it and thus accept this as the new normal. I hope to do the latter, but honestly am stuck somewhere in between the two options. You guys hopefully are all in on the second option. I know the twins are, they never hit the age where they realized something was wrong. Tommy, you might have some reservations and might cling to your past tendency to watch out for Roro like a parent protecting a child from themselves. Either way, tonight I am going to pray for Roro and ask the good Lord to allow her to remain in this mental state or even continue to improve. Tomorrow, I am going to pray that same prayer again. And the day after, and the day after that.
Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo
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