highlight from 10 days ago
Thought I'd share these two with you. I saw my gramps in his nursing home two weeks ago, on one of my two-monthly dashes over to the UK. He's been in a home for nearly five years now, and he had his 90th birthday last Sunday, for which, unfortunately, I couldn't be with him. He's weak and frail and tired and not very responsive any more, being nursed in bed, but still likes his pudding and anything sweet. Sometimes I get sad when I see him - he used to be such a strong, upright bloke, the sort that towers over you and makes you feel protected and safe. Now he's very small in his bed and we've had a few health scares with him in the last 6 months.
Most of the time he's asleep or dozing, but every now and again there's that little spark and a bit of the old gramps and his wicked, wicked sense of humour shines through. When he's awake and alert, you could be lucky - he could be taking in what you're saying and makes all the right noises, lots of "thank you" and "oh really" and "isn't that nice" and "good grief", or he could be way back in the past and away with the fairies because he's lost sense of time and place and while the diagnosis "dementia" has never been made, certain signs are there. But he's calm and quiet and lots of the "problems" and symptoms of dementia sufferers mentioned on TP don't really apply to him. And hey, he IS 90 years old, he is entitled to lose track of place and time...
Anyway, on this particular visit, I walked into his room and saw he was alert, eyes wide open, looking "with it", so I said "hey gramps, it's Tina come to visit you." No reaction. So I walk up to his bed, take his hand and repeat "hi gramps, it's Tina here." Back comes the very dry reply "yes, hello, I heard you the first time." I laughed heartily....this is the gramps I know. Made me go home to Germany with a less heavy heart because I had a really good visit.
When my dad saw him a few days later, gramps was hallucinating a bit, saw a dog in the room, etc., but dad played along nicely and they had a very animated conversations about this dog. Then gramps switched over to his days in the RAF and got a bit worked up, kept saying "I need to speak to the CA, I need to speak to the CA." My dad didn't know what he was getting at, so he said to gramps: "dad, who's the C A, what does he do?"
Apparently gramps looked at him as though he was from Mars and then said, very slowly, very clearly and very pronounced (as though talking to an imbecile): " The CA is the Clerical Assistant, you nit!" Clearly thought this young Greenhorn wasn't up to the job and why would the Warrant Officer have to explain ranks and job titles....
Just makes you wonder how the brain works, doesn't it....great mystery a lot of the time.
Tina