Confusion

When people get old, they get confused. It's pretty much a rule. But that doesn't make it any easier for those who have to see it happening. For instance, my grandma just turned 96 the other day, and, although she still lives alone and can do a lot of things herself, she does get confused. But like I said, it doesn't make it any easier to watch, even though I know that it's something everyone deals with.

The other day my sister was over at my grandma's house one morning, and told me that she (my grandma) had climbed the stairs herself and had been looking for something. That was odd, since she usually stays on the main floor and doesn't look for things.

So when I went to my grandma's house later that day, to spend a little time with her before bringing her back to our home for dinner, I was wholly unprepared for what ended up happening.

She had been puttering around, moving things from one counter to another in the kitchen, but that was nothing unusual. She was a very orderly housewife, and she often does cleaning sort of out of habit, even though her cleaning skills are less than stellar. Actually, a few weeks ago she kept on being worried about the kitchen floor. She kept on thinking it was dirty (it may have been, but not visibly so) and actually went so far as to get down on her hands and knees to feel on the floor and make sure it didn't have stuff on it. Thankfully we got her back up from her prayerful position, but it was just sort of an odd happening.

Anyhow, so she had been puttering, and finally I told her it was time to leave for dinner, and I help her put on her coat and she's standing sort of by the door, so I leave for about five seconds to go turn the lights off. I come back and she had taken off her coat. I tell her that it's time for supper and help her put her coat on again, which she promptly takes off.

"Can I get you anything, Grandma?"

"Well, yes," she said, slightly exasperated, "where are the children? I have to go and get the children."

At this point she starts trying to climb the stairs (so that's what had been going on!) and I'm pretty much half out of my mind with worry.

"The children? Grandma, do you mean A-- and O-- and S--? The ones who call you to sing to you?" (my nieces and nephews often called her to sing songs with her on the phone, and she routinely calls them children.)

"No. My children."

I rattled off the names of her own children, long since grown, and she told me that, yes, those were the children she was trying to find.

Like I said, I was basically sick with worry.

So we talk for a while about how her children have their own homes, and they're not upstairs, and finally I try to placate her by asking if she wants to call my mom and ask her about it. She basically charges to the couch (as quickly as one charges, using a walker) and I help her call my mom. I have no time to warn my mom about what's going on, obviously, so when my mom picked up the phone to hear her rather worried mother demanding to know where her children were, my mom was more than a little taken aback. But she rose to the occasion, asking what children she was looking for, and explained that indeed, all of her children had homes, and they were with their own families for supper.

My grandma finally understood, I think, and remembered that her children were indeed grown and married and not upstairs after all. I helped her put her coat back on, we went out the door with no further trouble, and by the time we got to my house for supper, she was completely back to her normal 96-year-old self.

But it frightened me, I'll admit. She does this sometimes, but it's never any easier to see her deteriorate like that. But I guess that's part of what love is--sorrow when one you love is suffering.

Which is just one of the many, many reasons I'm excited for the rapture. Heaven, besides having the Lord (which is the real reason I'm excited, obviously), is also a place of no more sorrow or tears. Won't that be amazing?