by Julia Dima
Dementia is not easy for any family. My heart aches for the pain people have experienced watching this disease take over those they love. My heart also soars at seeing how dementia teaches us about love and cherishing the little moments. In fact, the whole process is therapeutic.
My grandfather, Dumitru Gheorghiu, has dementia. I remember the day the diagnosis came. My grandfather chronically avoided medical care since he came to Canada in the late 70’s. I thought he was invincible, because he thought he was invincible. But one day when I was in my first year of high school, I received a call that my he had a heart problem, and was in the hospital. I remember my mom on the other end telling me, “I just want you to be prepared to see him like this.” I ran to the hospital, not even slightly prepared to see my invincible grandpa, pale, sickly, with breathing tubes on his face, his eyes red and wet.
After many years of neglecting his health, it wasn’t a surprise that he was diagnosed with multiple illnesses. But the diagnosis of dementia was a complete shock to me. I don’t remember the warning signs, because he was the powerful and unquestionable patriarch of our family, and I did not question anything he did. I didn’t understand what dementia was until I went home and did some Google searches. I didn’t want to imagine the memory loss, the frustration, and the confusion he would experience. I feared – and I still fear – the day he looks at me and doesn’t know my face.
In those first years, I thought I would see my grandpa deteriorate, and be destroyed by the illness. But we were blessed by what happened to him. First, I should clarify, there is stress for the family, managing his health is often a struggle, since he has diabetes, and loves to eat. His wife, also his primary caretaker, suffers too. Sometimes he gets frustrated, and when first diagnosed, the loss of independence struck him – he didn’t understand why he couldn’t use his band saw, or drive his car, or why he couldn’t eat whatever he felt like eating. I cannot put myself in his shoes, and imagine having everything pulled from you, like a baby having a blanket taken away at laundry time. Despite that, something happened in the dementia stage of his life that seldom happened before: He smiled more. He seemed to have a weight lifted off of him. Although that weight shifted onto the shoulders of his caretakers, it was off of him.
My grandfather didn’t live a typical life. As a teenager in Romania, he – along with my grandmother – was arrested for conspiring to protest against the communist government. He spent two years in concentration camps across the country. That experience was so devastating that to this day, he won’t tell us what happened in those two years. A CT scan revealed a scar on his frontotemporal lobe, consistent with trauma. We hear other stories of violent abuse against prisoners under the communist government, but because my grandfather’s story isn’t written in the history books, we can only speculate that he was also a victim of this violence. After leaving the prison camps, he was not a happy man. He had a criminal record, which made it difficult to gain good employment. He was emotionally troubled, and felt reliant on my grandmother despite the fact that she did not reciprocate his affection, and their marriage was not a happy one. Eventually, he left Romania and immigrated to Canada to find better opportunities, and support his wife and two daughters back home, who followed him to Canada six years later. With no English skills, he worked night shifts as a janitor for two decades.
He was a severe man. In Romania, male dominance wasn’t questioned. Patriarchs received respect, and raising a hand to question that system gets the hand slapped. He was emotionally abusive and often physically abusive to his whole family. As a young girl, being screamed at for making errors on my homework was a regular occurrence. Watching my grandmother be insulted and controlled was also a regular occurrence. Again, these actions aren’t questioned, they’re expected. I loved my grandfather anyway. He taught me lessons I keep with me today. He forced me to be academic, and if not for that, I maybe wouldn’t be graduating university this year. He was my father-figure, and he was my hero, mean and all.
When the dementia started to take over his mind, I noticed that he didn’t yell at anyone. He didn’t talk down to anyone. He shrugged where he would once raise a fist. Some dementia patients can experience aggression and paranoia. For my grandfather, his life was full of aggression and paranoia. His mind was sick – I’m certain he suffered PTSD, and he was full of hate. Somehow, the dementia soothed this. He forgot what he was so angry about, he forgave people he used to hate, and he seemed calmer. His life was made simple, and at first I thought that was a negative thing, because my grandfather – my superhero – was reduced to an old helpless person sitting on the edge of his bed all day. But for him, his life had created a prison of his mind. Dementia was the key that unlocked the cell and let him finally be free from the pain he’d experienced in his life.
Despite the hardships we face as a family, my grandpa, who led a miserable life to make our lives better, can finally live happily. Sunshine streaming through the window brings him joy. Playing with my dog makes him laugh with glee, and talk about his dogs. He loves. There are the sad moments of dementia. He forgets English. He forgets what he had for lunch. He forgets why he’s in certain places when we go out. But more importantly, he forgets to feel sad. He forgets to hate. He forgets to hold grudges. He forgets that he hurt us. For him, and for our whole family who lived in the shadow of a scary man, dementia has been a gift.
