Seeing Grandma and the “Right to Fall”

I saw my grandma today, her eyes sunken, her mouth dry and black, sores on her bottom from the bones sticking out, and the sad fact she probably weighs less than 90 pounds.

It happened so quickly. When I sit beside her now, I think of her finite existence. I didn’t think she’d go this way. During my lifetime, she’s always been old, lying on the couch ordering grandpa and me to do everything. We would listen to her and her thousands of demands. She was lively with the memory of a god.

I sat with her for a few hours, rubbed her a little, scratched her head. She is fragile and can hardly talk. She sleeps most of the time.

When she sleeps, she always starts to go to the right and almost falls out of her bed. I brought it up to the attention of the staff, and they said they couldn’t use a guard rail as that would be restraining her. Seniors have the right to fall. The staff said nursing homes don’t want to scare their patients or make them panic. I think it would be worse to fall over. Many elderly people can’t physically recover after a fall.

I said, okay, and they moved her back to the center and tried to use a pillow to keep it from happening again. Soon she will move to a better nursing home as she slowly slips into the night.

She showed some life today, which made the 3 hours I sat beside her worth it. While I know she won’t live much longer, perhaps a few months, if that, seeing her eyes open and her voice strongly speaking for 10 seconds let me see that she is still grandma for a little while.