Just finished watching Awakenings, which I have not seen in a few years. Towards the end one of the scenes with Robert De Niro’s “ticks” and the robe, it made me think of one of the residents at the nursing home where my grand mother stayed. My word, that place was horrible. My brother wouldn’t even go, and I never wanted to stay very long, but hey… she was our grand mother and I love her, so I went a long whenever Ma went to visit, which was regularly. It’s been maybe 13 or 14 years, but I can vaguely remember the layout of the building even. I can remember around Christmas when we brought her a little miniature tree and everything for her room; we still have it some where. I can even remember one of her birthday parties (would’ve been late 80s or early 90s, I think it was 89); it was probably the biggest event to touch that place (everyone there was invited). I still remember after ma had finally gotten to sick of the place, Nanny came back to live with her (My brother couldn’t pronounce “Granny” properly as a child, so “Nanny” stuck, and that’s what we all called my grand mother).
When the Alzheimer’s had started to get worse, Nanny had come to live with us: always fine by me. Worsening Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and a broken hip eventually accelerated things towards the end game. I still remember getting up one morning to find out that ma had found her sprawled out on the floor from a stroke; I remember sitting in the hospital waiting with my brother. And I remember the day before she died, ma and I had gone down to visit her; I wasn’t allowed in because I was still fairly young and they didn’t want kids runnin’ around. After a while though, given the situation, a nurse took me back and I got to see Nanny. It was about the next morning that we learned, she had passed away in her sleep during the night; a quick Google via site: shows me the when it happened. Watching Awakenings and that one scene, has made me think of a lot of things in greater detail.
I haven’t really thought about the home that much, was glad when she came back to stay with us for a while. But in the end, do I ever truly forget anything? Heh, I can still remember back to the day we moved into our last apartment: I remember it well because it was raining cats, dogs, and alligators down in Florida, and I was forgotten over the commotion, and left in the car for a while lol
Memory is an interesting thing.