28 July
By Martarantula
My grandma is the strongest woman I know. The beginning of this story resembles a love story from fairy tales, where a daughter from a well situated family leaves the secure home and gives up the ”secure future with the strong family background” for her love – a young man from a poorer family. They get married and have three sons, do their best to raise them into responsible grown-ups. As the years go by they have already grandchildren and celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary, after so much year they still are a perfect couple. As there is a quite big difference in their ages, grandpa is getting the symptoms of Alzheimer and dementia, losts memories and stops recognizing his own wife. She is taking care of him until he dies. Long after grandpa´s death she keeps the urn with his ashes in the house, close to herself. Later she prepares a resting place with names of both of them on it and puts grandpa on his place. Now comes the part, that the fairly tales are missing usually. Her friends start to disappear, death is coming for them. The feeling of abandonment rises, but she won´t give up. Then comes a day she feels very bad, calls the doctor and is waiting for him to come, when my mother and I are coming to her with terrible news about what happened that day. But we won´t say until she is in hospital where professionals can take care of her. By that time she is not the only one in hospital fighting for her life and she knows already that her son had a car accident and as the consequence of brain damage lost consciousness. The hardest moment of my life was when I needed to tell my grandma about my father´s death. A whole world broke in her and we were expecting the worst scenario – losing both of them at the same time. But she did not give up! She wanted to live and decided for life. I cannot stop admire her for her willingness and power to live. She lives alone in her house that keeps all the memories, watching friends and family members dying and still having enough energy to carry on (and even mow the lawn). Szeretlek mamácska!
