When my grandma was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s everyone got really sad,
we couldn’t believe she would forget her family; her husband, me, my dad.
Everything happened so quickly, how could we have known,
that memories were running away from her, there were no signs she had shown.
To indicate that she was leaving us, not in body but in mind,
I didn’t know what was happening until I went to the hospital where she was confined.

Laying there in her hospital bed, with all of us around her,
worried about cooking dinner, she didn’t know where we were.
When I realized what was happening, I just could not believe,
that a few, very short, years later, my grandma would completely leave.
The reason I could not believe this was because she was such a source of love,
I could not understand why she was being punished, by somebody above.

Growing up I had always considered my grandmother to be,
the best woman in the entire world, true love’s epitome.
Every time we would come to the farm, she’d open the door, grinning wide,
and say “I’m so glad to see you all, c’mon let’s go inside!”
The minute you walked through that door, you knew that you were home,
surrounded by love so deep it was tangible and open spaces in which to roam.
The best memories of my childhood center around this place,
and in each one of these memories is my grandma’s smiling face.

Now my grandma sits in a nursing home, unable to respond,
to our pleas for her to come back to us, for her mind has been long gone.
And though this overwhelms me sometimes, because I just don’t think it’s fair,
I know if she was able, she’d tell me not to despair.
For our time together isn’t over, we’ll meet again someday.
Regardless, I know her love for her family will never fade away.