She doesn’t remember my name. Mother Nature stole her mind.

Dear ole Mother Nature ensnared my grandma’s mind and has been gnawing on her mentality ever since.

Her wrinkles still crinkle when she smiles and says “I love you honey,” but I know her mental faculties aren’t all there.

I can see, as her eyes fill with frustration, that she’s not sure who I am.

One minute she believes she’s my sweet ole grandma, and the next, she’s a friend who has to get home to parents who’ve been dead for 30 years.

No matter, I love her anyway.

In social settings, she participates in conversations, saying things that seem to fit in. But, if you talk to her long enough and just let her speak, her cute little phrases become an incoherent mass of words.

In mid-sentence, she forgets what she is saying and just says the first thing that comes to mind, whether it’s remotely related to the topic at hand or not.

Trying to decipher her sentences is like trying to assemble a single jigsaw puzzle from a dozen little ones. The pieces just don’t fit together.

No matter, I’ll listen anyway.

About three years ago, a nurse had said she was senile. Another had said it was probably Alzheimer’s disease and that my family would eventually have to put her into a home.

We had other ideas.

Plans had went something like, if Grandpa dies before Grandma, she would come and live with us—even if she was sick. An old folks home was out of the question.

Heartless was the word I had used to describe people who put elderly relatives in homes, but three years of Grandma becoming progressively worse and a 50-day visit has altered my perspective.

I hadn’t realized how difficult taking care of an elderly person could be.

She can’t be left alone, not for a second. She has become a danger to herself and us—but a danger we still want around.

She tries to turn on our gas stove to light a cigarette or heat water for tea, but she can’t master how the stove works. More than once, she has left the stove on without having ignited the flame, and the odor of gas has filled the room.

My mother has tried to stop her from touching the stove, but explanations, coaxing, even yelling doesn’t work.

Unfortunately, she has the habits of an adult and the mind of a child.

I love her anyway.

She gets bored during the day, though we try to give her tasks to do. We bought her yarn because she had always loved to crochet, but she no longer remembers how.

At night, she wanders the house, and although doors are locked and keys are hidden, the fear that she will leave the house and get lost, or worse, is always present.

Twenty-four-hour care is needed and 24-hour care is what villages for the elderly offer.

The solution seems simple, and yet it makes me uncomfortable.

I keep remembering the abondoned looks on several wrinkled faces at an elderly home I visited. I remember learning of relatives who rarely visited and others who disappeared after check-in day.

I remember quite clearly condemning every person that ever put a relative in a home.

I’m not condemning everyone now. I understand the whys behind the decisions. I understand the limitations, but I still don’t understand the abandoned looks.

I know how frustrating it is to spend even 15 minutes listening to babble, but I’m positive my grandma and other victims like her had listened many times to the babbling of a drunk or someone excited or a child.

So I’ll continue to sit and listen. I’ll nod my head and smile. The abandoned look won’t appear in her eyes.

She doesn’t remember my name.

No matter, I love her anyway.