Rating: ***** (5 Stars)
(Photo by: Erix L.)
To my relatives who might be reading
this now, my sincerest apology. Everything that is written here happened.
Everything that is expressed here, I felt. And I hope you will not judge me for being
honest. I do hope you’ll ask this question before you conclude that I am a hypocrite person: “How could someone who has not been
there possibly understand?”
“Still Alice” by Lisa Genova is one of the
powerful books I have read so far this year. I have read Og Mandino, Italo
Calvino, M. Scott Speck… Toni Morison, but Still Alice gripped my heart so hard like a
steel. During the hours I spent reading the book (around 24 hours), there had
been a force that pushed and pulled me in and out from the shoes of my
grandmother who has Alzheimer’s disease. According to her doctors, the mild
stroke she experienced almost 10 years ago triggered her dementia when she was
still around her late 60’s.
Of course, my family did not really take it
into utmost consideration. We (yes, including me) considered her “memory gaps”
as associated with old age without realizing that the symptoms she had been
showing back then was of Dementia. As the time went by, my grandmother has shown fluctuation on her attitudes and moods (based on my observation because I
have been living with her with only a room that separates us). Some of the
things I can underscore here are the ff:
- When she was looking for her undershorts, which had been lost for… I don’t even know how many years! She became suspicious of our maid, blaming my mother for letting the latter steal her undershorts.
- The money issues, her lost wallet that we could not find, jewelries that were lost, but found in a pocket of her old bag. Keys that were lost but were found in the deepest corner of our sofa.
- Of course, there were a great number of times concerning speech reprtition.
- Once, during breakfast, she threw bread at me. Once, she threw a knife at me.
There were hallucinations wherein she
thought she saw someone hanging at the ceiling or someone standing by the door.
She would always blame us for something that is not right, which is actually
right. In addition, she put a lot of salt on the food she cooked. She drunk water and soda
without realizing that she had just drunk.
Taking her medicine had been dreadfully
worrisome, because she might drink her medicine
all at the same time. Bringing her to the hospital for checkup (because she has
diabetes) has been one of the things my mother dreaded the most. It’s too
difficult to convince grandma to go to the hospital. In trying to do so, she
would burst out, shout, scream and cry… she would declare “Let me die! Leave me
alone! Get out of my house!”. Of course, my mother, as a daughter is always heartbroken
every time these things happen. Who wouldn’t be? Just thinking about that this thing
might happen to my own mother… I want to die right now. (Oh shit… I am crying now.).
Unfortunately, one cannot avoid this
disease. As what Lisa Genova has written at the end of the book, the medicine
stated in the novel are fictitious. On the other hand, she had mentioned that
there have been a number of ongoing studies on medicines that will slow down the
progression of the disease.
I have realized a number of things and I
also want my relatives to realize or to at least think about my grandmother…
not think about her disease but to really think about her. There was a part in the
book wherein Alice said that she wanted to be taken seriously even if she is
sick. She wanted empowerment and not pity. She wanted encouragement and not
avoidance. She wanted love and most of all… she wanted the people she love to
remember the person she was once.
As I look back on the past, I remember my
grandmother secretly giving me chocolates. Even if I am not the favorite
granddaughter… thinking about it she had been so good to me. Although she was
most of the time cold towards me, I can say that she is good mother because my
mother is good to me. Who else would be my mother’s model, but my grandmother…
her mother.
Some of you might say that I am a hypocrite
because I have shouted at my grandmother, that I had been disrespectful, and
that I am a thick skinned human being for writing this entry. But if you will
only feel the way I have felt from the
day I started high school, the bullying, the depression, the insult… all the
pain. You would somehow understand that too much oppression can cause someone
to be introverted. And an introvert who is pushed to his/her limits would one day slashed out… all the way out!
There were times when I get so annoyed and
frustrated because of my situation in my grandmother’s house, with my dreams
that seemed too difficult to reach, with all the rejection and pain… I wanted
to bang my head on the wall wishing that it will make me sleep to end the
heaviness that I feel on my heart. There were times that I was tempted to kill
myself and jump and threw myself across the street wishing that a car would run
me down. There were times that I do not want to wake up anymore.
Yep. So I’ll end it here.
I am very thankful to Lisa Genova for
writing the that talks about the story of so my people with Alzheimer’s
Disease. This book, I believe will greatly help those who are caring for their
love ones who have AD. I do believe that… there will be a time scientist will
be able to find a cure… if not a cure, something that will slow down the
effects of AD. Memory is so fragile… it’s like a thread made of glass and if we
can only preserve them in a treasure box in our mind, we would do so, right?
Sincerely,
Erica/Erix/Eris
