Grandad's gone.
He's still with us, but....he's gone...if you understand me correctly. Hasn't been with us for a few years. We thought it funny at first, till we realized what was happening. Then it dawned on us....he didn't know us anymore. Lifetime's of memories....events, holidays, pictures, kisses, hugs and laughter....and only we could remember them. When we told him about them, he would smile and stare away...trying to find them in his mind, with no luck.
When it started, he was telling me about a dog that he had heard about. A poyne setter, he called it. I told him, I'd never heard of it. He couldn't tell me what it looked like, just what it was called. When I looked it up on the internet, the closest I found to it, was the plant...a poinsetta. I told him it was a funny joke, but he got mad. Told me he saw it on a dog show on television, it was a dog, a Poyne Setter, and he was angry at me.
Not long after that, every time he saw me, he said "Anne, can you do this for me? or Anne, can you get me that?". My name is Sarah, Anne is my Aunty. She's been gone since 1963, car crash. I'm not Anne. I thought he was doing it to make fun of me for the Poyne Setter thing. He wasn't. We were losing him.
He talked a lot about the early sixties, kept on calling me Anne. I put up with it, because for every time he messed up my name, after a short spell, he'd get it right and we'd be fine.
A few weeks back, it happened again. I hadn't been around for a while and he sat there, looking out at the sea from the porch, when suddenly he turned to me and said "Anne...I need you to find me something". I said sure Grandad...he didn't notice.
"I want you to find me one of those sweaters they keep talking about...one of those fleece things. But, he added...I want a wool one, a nice wool one. A Wool Navidad....not a fleece navidad, but, a wool one. This time, I knew he wasn't kidding.
I told him, I'd look. He smiled, and turned and kept staring out from the porch. He always loved his porch. Full of plants out there to tend, when he remembered. Most of them were dead or dying now, which was sad because he always took such care of them.
My favorite, was always the wandering jew....he'd kept it alive for nearly thirty years now. I was keeping it alive, he didn't remember it at all. We used to joke about the name, he called it a creeping jesus....just to get me angry. Now, it was just a plant, he didn't remember.
We've lost Grandad. He's still here, but, he's gone. I hope he finds us in there some day, creeping jesus', fleece navidads, poyne setters and all.