Grandmother’s Keeper

In the summer of my freshman year, my grandmother developed dementia. She had been living by herself in California for a decade at that point, but had barely been able to speak English. As with any other Chinese family, we thought a nursing home would essentially be the same as saying to my grandmother that we hated her. So, my family took her into our house to live with us, and so that we could take care of her. However, my father was often on business trips and my sister was away at college, leaving my mother, grandmother and me alone in the house. 

Initially, my grandmother was a welcome addition to the house, cooking with my mother, taking care of my sister and me when we were home, and being a heartwarming presence. But, with dementia, these things were never meant to last. The dementia progressed, and with the lack of memory, my grandmother grew more and more paranoid. She believed that we were keeping her prisoner in our house. She would try to escape everyday, with my mother or me having to chase after her and convince her to come back home. 

One day, when my mother was at work, my grandmother just escaped through the garage. I chased after her, unable to convince her to go home. She had found our neighbors house, and was attempting to tell them that she wanted away from us. Luckily, she was only capable of speaking mandarin and our neighbors couldn’t understand. I could feel the blood rush to my head, the panic bubbling in my stomach. I reassured our neighbors, telling them that my grandmother meant no harm, that she was simply confused. I kept her company and called my mother to tell her to come home. After what seemed like an eternity, my mother came back. She gently told my grandmother that she was safe, and that I wasn’t there to antagonize her and our poor neighbors should be left alone. Luckily it worked that time.

Soon though, no words would work on her. She kept insisting that we were tormenting her, keeping her in prison. To be fair to her, my parents, out of fear that my grandmother would escape, had installed child-locks on our doors, and secured the garage door shut at night. Of course, nothing was impenetrable. And, of course, the day came when my mother and I woke up to my grandmother gone. No trace of where she had left to, other than a half-opened garage door. My poor mother had a panic attack and wasn’t sure what to do. As an immigrant, she heard that we weren’t allowed to report someone as missing until the 24 hour mark hit, but she was panicking from losing her mother. I knew I needed to calm her down and find her, so I called the police myself. They arrived, and said she had been found at a hospital nearby. Some helpful Samaritans had picked her up off the street and dropped her off at the hospital. My mother and I went to the hospital and picked her up. I could see in my mother that she couldn’t handle it anymore. 

My family had put her into a nursing home. My mother’s hatred for the idea had been defeated, she was tired, more than physically, mentally and spiritually she knew that she couldn’t take care of my grandmother this way. However, this wasn’t the end of our problems. In this nursing home, everyone spoke English. My grandmother was unhappy and alone. When we went to visit her, she was quiet, disengaged. My mother was heartbroken, after all anyone seeing their own mother alone in a foreign country and her mind slowly giving in would be depressed.

As a result, my mom wanted to move her back to Taiwan, where the nursing homes would be better equipped to handle my grandmother. We then moved her to Taiwan, and a Taiwanese nursing home, where she could speak the language that everyone else spoke. It was better, but nothing was perfect. 

Soon I became a college student. The memory of taking care of my grandmother and the positive ones, the ones before dementia stole her away from me, seemed to be fading. And, as much as I despise myself now for doing it, I forgot how much she meant to me and my family. When we visited Taiwan to take care of her and visit my grandmother, I didn’t feel the need to go. I had other, more important matters like physics and classes and grades and all that bullshit. When I went, it was like she wasn’t there at all. My mother tried and tried to get her to talk to us and it was futile, like I wasn’t her grandson. 

But things like this sit with people. And my grandmother and her condition and my attitude towards her sat with me. Maybe not at the forefront of my mind all the time, but it was there. Eventually one day, I was about to drift to sleep, and I had just ended a conversation with my father about his mother. And I realized, ashamedly now, but my grandmother was the same person. Deep inside her mind, she was the same person that raised me, who praised and taught me to control my emotions, and loved me for all my flaws. And I hadn’t even thought about her the same way for years.

Dementia steals one's ability to simply be a person. I watched it develop in both my grandmother and on my father’s side, my grandfather. I could feel the fear grow inside me, not just that I was likely to develop it, but my father and mother as well. I was still young, and scared. How could I take care of my parents the same way they had taken care of theirs? I wasn’t close to being as successful or as competent as them. It was something that bothered me for countless nights, and still bothers me to this day. But I made a vow, to myself, to my family, and most importantly to my grandmother. To be the type of person that no matter what will take care of their family.