Grandma Cassidy had five granddaughters. I’m the oldest, then there’s Bunny’s two girls: Suzanne and Beth, and Ray’s two daughters: Marie and Claire.

And so it feels like Grandma has been at work behind the scenes and in cahoots with the angels to remind one granddaughter that she had a copy of this wonderful memoir written by another granddaughter many years ago.

Suzanne emailed it to me the other day. With Marie’s permission, here is that essay, which she wrote back in high school, circa 1990.

Trigger warning: If you’re in mourning or have a dear relative or friend with dementia, this may be too much for right now. It’s beautiful, but will bring forth emotions. I’ve laughed and cried each time I’ve read it. Dementia is so tough to see and experience.

Grandma: A Memoir

I visit you
in your land of confusion
and I put up walls
so I won’t get hurt;
but when I look
into your eyes
I can’t help but begin to cry.
This is not how
you’d want to live.

My grandmother Cecelia Regan Cassidy is a remarkable woman. Strong-willed, yet gentle. Petite in frame but firm in her ideals. She’s an Irish Catholic who believes strongly in family. She can chat with almost anyone, although home is where her heart is.

As I am writing this paper, I’m finding it difficult to decide whether to write in the past or present tense, for my grandmother now lives in a convalescent home in a disoriented state of mind.

She’s lost a sense of reality.

There are no boundaries between the past and present in her mind. She talks as if her mother and other deceased family members were still alive. Events that might have taken place 65 years ago she’ll talk about as just happening. It is difficult to see her this way. It’s heart wrenching. The last thing she’d ever want to be is a “crazy” old woman.

I have such happy memories of visiting my grandma’s house.

My grandfather died when I was in second grade, so most of my memories are of my grandmother. However, I do remember my whole family going over to the house when he was still alive, bringing Kentucky Fried Chicken for dinner. That was a big treat for us kids. My grandmother would be so busy running around, fixing other parts of the meal that she’d hardly sit down to the table, which was what my parents were trying to avoid by bringing dinner.

As a matter of fact, one of the best aspects of visiting Grandma was the food.

She was like a kid. She loved sweets and junk food. Never would she be without any on hand. Every visit, my sister and I – with our mouths watering – would scurry to the dining room where we’d find a bowl of candy. Usually the butterscotch hard candies. Or on good days Reese Peanut Butter Cups and Snickers, too. Moreover, she’d never fail to direct my brothers and us to the front hall closet which was always stocked with Ruffles sour cream and onions potato chips and six-packs of soda. I always considered these things delicacies since we never had them at home.

In addition to the food, Grandma’s house had other intriguing aspects. My sister and I used to sneak upstairs (not that my grandmother wouldn’t have let us) and snoop around the bedrooms. There were drawers full of hats, high heels, and jewelry. Grandma must have been the hippest dresser in her day. My mother remembers seeing my father’s family in church when she was young, and she says that she always admired my grandmother’s fashionable clothing. However, Grandma was far from frivolous. She was very religious. I can remember always seeing rosary beads by her bed and hearing her talking about her devotion to different saints.

Grandma could make anybody laugh.

She was a riot. At family get-togethers, she was always the life of the party – just by the way she acted. One Christmastime, all the relatives were at my aunt’s house, and we were playing – or trying to play – Trivial Pursuit. Grandma was driving everybody crazy by yelling out answers to every team’s questions, and the wrong answers at that. She wouldn’t stop, no matter what anybody said. It was hopeless. She was just so ridiculous, you couldn’t help but laugh.

Moreover, Grandma could charm anyone.

She still does. Even the nurses at the convalescent home can’t get over how “cute” Grandma is. I guess sometimes she stays up pretty late at night keeping the nurses amused by chatting with them.

In fact, I used to love hearing her speak about the past. She grew up in a close, loving family of nine children, all of whom she loved tremendously. She would always speak of how gentle “Momma” was and how “Poppa” never once raised his hand to any of the children. She’d talk of the different horses they owned and how “Poppa” would race some of them for fun at the race track. She would talk of her boyfriends and how she met Grandpa. She loved to tell my sister and me how to get a man – drop small hints that you’re interested, but never be aggressive.

Also, it was interesting to hear about how Grandma grew up in a house on the next street over. The backyard of that house is back-to-back with the house she moved to when she married. So Grandma lived in the same neighborhood in New Haven for just about all of her life.

I loved her house.

It was a two-story white house and was just the way you’d want a grandparent’s house to be – it had the old furniture your parents grew up with and years (and I mean years) worth of knickknacks. Dolls in the living room, pictures of Jesus through the house, and an “Erin Go Bragh” sign on the coffee table. Upstairs, she had closets full of clothes that she would practically force on you. If you gave any indication that you liked something, you’d probably find yourself traveling home with it. Her dining room table was always covered with cards from friends and relatives on the holidays.

There were also many policeman figurines around the house because my grandfather was a New Haven police officer. That being the case, Grandma must have been a very strong woman. It could not have been easy being married to a policeman. She must have had many sleepless nights worrying about his safety. Nevertheless, Grandma always spoke in a soft, loving, prideful tone when speaking of Grandpa and his job.

However, she did manage to put her foot in her mouth at times.

She said what she thought. I remember her commenting on how she couldn’t understand why an old friend still refused to talk to her when all she had done was to tell her how “thick” she was. That is hilarious. Grandma is so funny. My mom says she can remember going over to my father’s, and Grandma would sit her down in the kitchen and say how she hated to pry and then would proceed to ask my mother numerous questions about her family. Grandma was such a character.

Grandma loved to talk.

She would talk about relatives, friends, what she thought was important in life. But she was always interested to hear what others felt.

Unfortunately, about a year or so ago, she started to see “people” in the house. She would admit that they were just imaginary people, but it really frightened her. Her health had been declining for a couple of years, but worsened when May, a favorite sister, died last spring.

Although my father and his two sisters did their best to convince her that she needed outside help, she refused to go to a convalescent home or let a nurse come in because she didn’t want to live with strangers or “have a stranger in the house.” I don’t know how, but she managed to spend last summer at the house. It seems unbelievable. She was 86 years old, in poor health, and living by herself in a big house in New Haven. Everyone was worried about her. I prayed for her every night, but they knew it would crush her to leave the house which had meant so much to her.

Despite her reluctance to accept help, things were getting worse for Grandma.

She seemed smaller each visit. She had a hard time going up and down her stairs. Grandma told us not to worry, that on each step she’d stop and ask Jesus to help her up the next. She saw more and more “people” and in conversations her thoughts made less and less sense.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, Grandma fell down the stairs one day last fall and was found by my father and a neighbor. She was rushed to the hospital. After being treated for poor blood circulation and dehydration, among other things, she stayed there for a couple of weeks and then went into a convalescent home.

She hasn’t been home since.

At one point in the hospital, my grandmother whispered to my aunt Joan that maybe it was time for her to have help. Well, that was certain but unfortunately Grandma promptly forgot she had said it. Perhaps the saddest thing is that she doesn’t even mention the house anymore.

When I see her at the convalescent home, she is usually tied to her wheelchair. She looks so fragile. She will sometimes recognize visitors but not always. Often, she’ll drift into conversation about things from her past and talk to visitors as if they were someone else. I guess in such confusion the past is all she has to comfort her.

I was greatly disturbed at first.

Grandma would never have wanted to be some old woman whom people would pity. It was just so emotionally draining to see her begin to cry and say that she was scared at night. I felt so helpless around her. But recently, she has seemed better. She looks healthier and doesn’t seem so desperate. But maybe I’ve just hit her good days.

During one of my recent visits, I was sitting with her and she started to hand me imaginary candies from her blanket. I went along with it and tried to hold back tears. But in a way I was happy. She always used to give me candy during my visits to her house.

Maybe this was her way of showing that she, too, had fond memories of our past.

Her house needs to be sold to pay for her stay in the convalescent home. Buyers have been found, and my aunts are cleaning it out. I hear that all the furniture is now gone. Most has been taken by relatives. I don’t want to see it. I’ll always have a crystal clear picture in my mind of her house, every knickknack in place, and Grandma – with her playful eyes and warm heart – waiting at the door …

I love you
beyond expression,
never will you change.
Your place is
hard fast in my heart.
I thank God for you
and pray with all
my heart for your
peace of mind and soul.

---

Marie was just 17 years old when she wrote this. Dealing with a loved one sinking into dementia is hard enough for an adult to deal with; I’m so grateful Marie was able to express her pain – and love – by writing from her heart.

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