My Grandparent’s Steps
About six months after the BK Big Fish experience, my wife and I met my mom and dad at my grandparent’s house for an early Christmas dinner.
By now, my mom’s speech had degraded noticeably. While she was able to get most of her thought out, it often took time, and almost always took some creative deciphering. She could still eat on her own for the most part, though she needed some occasional help getting the food in her mouth, or back on the table.
As sad as it all sounds, by now, we were all getting pretty used to it.
Our visit that day was pretty normal. We told stories, we joked around, we laughed. As always, when Antcliffs got together, we ate.
As night settled in, we decided it was time to wrap things up and head out. We got up, said our goodbyes, got our shoes and jackets on, and headed out to the cars.
My grandparent’s had a small deck attached to their home. There was a small drop from the front door to the surface, and then three stairs from the deck to the driveway, where my dad had parked. The stairs were a little shorter than average, as my grandparent’s both had troubles with larger steps. If I remember correctly, I’d guess there was no more than a 5-6″ drop per step.
My mom had already shown a few signs of having some difficulty walking, but for the most part, she could manage – especially if she had somebody there to help. Even stairs hadn’t been an issue at that point. But that day, just a few days before Christmas, when it was time to for her to face those steps, something just wasn’t right.
As expected, she needed dad’s help to get from the door to the deck. It took her a few minutes to make the first movement. To this day, I don’t know what the issue was. Did she forget how to step down? Did she somehow fail to realize it was only a few inches? Did she lose her ability to understand she was safe?
Whatever it was, it almost paralyzed her on that first step.
She laughed a little, signifying that she was frustrated and uncomfortable with the situation, but that she was still trying. After, I’m guessing, two minutes, and only with the help of both my dad and myself, she finally made it to the deck. We then made our way over to those stairs.
Those three, insignificant little stairs.
I’m not going to go into every detail here. As I sit here recalling that day, I realize I don’t have it in me to recall all it all in detail. I just can’t. What I will tell you all is that it took my dad and I about 15 minutes to get my mom down those stairs. We tried everything to get her down. We tried to make jokes. We tried to pull her. We tried to actually pick her foot up from one stair and drop it to the next. But she was frozen there. She got to the second step, and wouldn’t move any further.
And that sound she made. Dear God, that sound.
I don’t know how to explain it. If genuine fear made a noise, this was it. It was a constant, shaking, whine. I can’t ever forget that.
Finally, feeling that without drastic action, my mom may never come off those stairs, I just grabbed her around her waist, hugged her in, picked her up, and dropped her to the driveway. She instantly grabbed me back, and buried her face in my chest. She kept repeating over and over, “my big boy…my big boy.”
As I held my mom, telling her everything was fine, I looked around at my wife, my dad, and my grandparents. All of them, just like me, had tears in their eyes, or running down their cheeks.
I helped my mom to her van, where dad sat her down and buckled her in. We all hugged goodbye, and didn’t say much else. Then we went home.
I don’t know how I made it home that night. The first 20 miles consisted of nothing but me crying and screaming out of anger and fear. It wasn’t fair that we had to deal with this, and that mom had to go through it. I punched the wheel, I yelled, I swore…and it changed nothing.
Anger is a pretty normal emotion for families dealing with Alzheimer’s to deal with. But it won’t help. Only when you can control it, and harness it to help you focus on what you need to do is anger effective. Today, almost five years after mom passed, I’m still angry.
I think I’ll always be angry. And there’s not a damn thing wrong with that.