Losing him to a prison of the mind
As my grandfather’s dementia progresses slowly, but surely, I’m forced to confront with losing a part of him.
“You are…” he stuttered, holding his tongue. A lacuna in his sentence, a break in his train of thoughts.
Probed by my mother and a little bit uneasy with the fact that he cannot remember who am I, my maternal grandfather sat in a rickety wooden straw chair before me, eyes slightly glazed over, with an outstretched hand frozen in a pointing gesture, mid-air.
I haven’t seen him in a year and a half, and so many things have changed. My grandfather’s hair greyed, his back hunched, agility lost in his movements, that persistent shudder in his hands. He started to lose some control over his bowel movements, his legs weak and unyielding.
Over the span of a few months, he had slipped and fell in places around the house. Nothing was broken, but it did worry me a lot.
Are we losing him, slowly but surely?
One nondescript afternoon, my grandmother’s siblings dropped by for a visit. He stood before him, smiling brightly, half-jokingly asking him if he still remember them. His memory was patch — he knew some of them by name, but was unsure of their familial ties to him (or his wife).
In the punishing tropical heat and under the a squeaky old ceiling fan, conversations drifted to people that he could still recall by name. We sat around him, some on a couch and some in plastic chairs, listening, with some optimism and hope, to the list of people he enumerated.
The responses he got probably took him by surprise. Many of them had passed on, some months ago, and some years ago. Sitting to his left, I saw him fell silent as the talk moved at a glacial pace. “They’re no longer here, pa,” my mother said softly.
I looked at her. I see sadness and learned helplessness in her eyes. I don’t know if I should walk up to her and give her a hug, or if a reassuring smile would suffice. Too undecided and embarrassed after making eye contact, I averted my gaze to my grandfather.
I swear I saw a sparkle in his eye—from his tears, perhaps. As his memory continued to give way underneath his feet, every passing day is a never-ending cycle of being thrusted into the unknown, and being forced to come to the common consensus that family and friends he thought he knew had long departed.
My family and my maternal grandparents never failed to make our annual pilgrimage to Genting Highlands, a mountain resorted nestled in the mountain range running down the center of the Malaysian peninsula. Since the time I was a toddler we have kept this very tradition—a three-day two-night stay in Resort Hotel, where all six of us spend quality time with each other, dining in the chilly mountain air and talking late into the night.
I still remembered how he loved the salted, marinated chicken and porridge my mom used to prepare; or that how he developed an insatiable adoration for a specific restaurant in the highland resort.
The declining heath of my grandfather made it increasingly uncomfortable for him to make the dizzying car ride up to the highland resort. Even though the tradition faded into black, we would still very much love to have him visit us at home in Kuala Lumpur, although that meant a four-hour drive from Penang where my grandparents have resided in since time immemorial.
I am never good at goodbyes. Especially when knowing that I have to part with a part of my grandfather that I know so affectionately and dearly. He was a very strict father to my mother and her siblings, but unfailingly doting on his grandchildren. He went out of the way to install mosquito nettings in every single orfice of his house when I was still a toddler. All of that out of his own pockets.
I remember him as a stubborn, strict but strong-willed, caring and intelligent figure. Besides my father, he is the only other significant fatherly figure in my life. He was the one who told me to not shy away from chasing my dreams when I expressed doubt about moving to Singapore and beyond; the one who would always ask about me at family gatherings that I didn’t manage to attend because of prior commitments.
He was an avid practicer of qigong, an ancient practice he inherited from a stranger that blends body and self-awareness with meditation and exercise. He would travel around Malaysia, where friends and strangers would ferry him around so he could spread his art of qigong. He even organised classes at home, in the back of his grocery store, to benefit those who were interested in the exercise.
He was the pioneer in the town my mother grew up in—in the bygone days when he owned an electronics store, he was one of the first merchants who introduced colour television to the townspeople. My mother would still affectionately recall how kids in the surrounding villages would
He was a strict father, who never shied away from punishment—be it verbal or physical, still acceptable in many parts of Asian society today, when my mother or her siblings did wrong. While his stubbornness and zealousness empowered him to establish a profitable business in the town which in turn blessed my mother with a comfortable childhood, my grandmother stood by him as the mediator who soothed out wrinkles in their daily store operations, maintained and repaired relationships with neighbours, tended to bruised egos and mended lapses in hot-headed judgments.
But all of that is slowly slipping away.
It hurts me that a huge part of his personality is slowly lost to dementia. He is quiet, somewhat more easily exhausted, impaired in mobility and fine motor skills, and forgetful. Despite appearing like the lights are on but nobody is home, he still surprises us every now and then — like how he suddenly remembers someone’s name, or manages to tell apart my mother and her other sister.
Will he be the same tomorrow morning? Next week, month? Or one year from now? It’s an open question with no clear answer. Every single passing day when I can still see him smile or guffaw at something seemingly small, feed or clean himself, or even just move around in a walker, will be the one that counts and matters the most.
“I will still love you even though you’re no longer young and beautiful.”
However, does that make me love him less? Not a single bit. We are only human, after all — souls encased in organic bodies subjected to the laws of nature, and the relentless, unforgiving wear and tear that comes with the passing of time.
I know he probably still don’t know who I am, but he still politely thanked me, the weird, bespectacled stranger, when I asked if he had eaten, bathed, slept well. To me, it is of great comfort that part of him is still there. This moment will not last, but I should cherish every single instance when part of him is still with us, instead of being filed away in a small drawer back in the recesses of a shrinking prison of the aging mind.
I love you, grandpa. Come and hold my hand when you are confused or lost. I will be here for you, always.
