Grandmother
My grandmother is in dire straights. She has suffered the affects of Alzheimer's for several years. I feel that I lost her about four years ago. She hasn't recognized me in a long time. She doesn't recognize her sons She doesn't remember things from long ago. Now her body is failing. She gets repeated kidney infections and that is bringing her liver down. She is suffering multiple organ failure. I fear next week is when I'll get the call.
She grew up during the great depression. Food was hard to come by. She always stored canned food in the cellar of her home in Kansas. When my parents went up to sell her house, they said there were cans in the back that may have been twenty years old or more. There were cloths stacked from floor to celling in back bedrooms. She had five abb cruncher machines. Those bastards had her on a list and just kept selling her stuff over the phone.
I never liked her. She was manipulative. She tried to drive a wedge between my parents every day. She treated my mother like a criminal for steeling her son away. I remember hearing stories of the fights she and my late grandfather had. Even the filter of time doesn't soften the hate that was there. They got divorced after forty five years of marriage. Can you believe that, forty five years? She lived a very hard life.