Creative Writing Post

Hello my fabulous followers.  Today I am posting something a bit different.  You will see this time to time becasue I must post things for my classes in Creative Communications.  The following is an assignment I had to do for my Creative Writing class.  The object of the assignment was to share something about your life that may be interesting to other people.  I thought caring for my 96 year old grandma was interesting because not many grandparents live to that age.  I am 39 years old and my grandma is still alive.  I think I am very lucky.  My mom is 73 and can still enjoy her mother.  I think that is amazing.  This short piece is about what I go through as being a care giver for my grandma.  I hope you enjoy it.  Thank you for reading it and have a great week.

 When it is required, I am my grandma’s primary care giver. She is 96 years old.   On September 12, 2010, I received a call from my Auntie saying that my Grandma was not well so I spent the entire day with her, sitting on her blue floral love seat in her very cozy apartment.   Physically, my grandma is in wonderful shape except for the arthritis in her upper arms.  I think she could work at the local radio station because she predicts the rain better than the weather man.  Her mental state of mind is what concerns me the most.  Her memory is declining rapidly.  In addition, she is constantly depressed.   My heart feels so heavy when I see her struggling. 

The worst is when I see my grandma cry.  Her face scrunches up into her shoulders.  The pain seems to ooze out of every part of her.  I want to help her so badly when I see her like this.  I feel so helpless.  All I can do is offer her comfort and love.  All she says when she is in this state is that she misses my grandpa Charlie so much she wants to join him now.  My grandpa Charlie passed away almost a year and a half ago and I think my grandma died with him.  She is not able to move on at all and cries three times a day.  My grandma’s skin looks amazing and it is barely wrinkled.  She is incredibly fortunate.   It only wrinkles when she cries.  When she cries, it is the worst. Her face looks like it is going to crack like broken glass.  It is difficult to watch.

When I was with her, she stayed in bed all day and slept with her arms folded across her chest, like a corpse.   When I see her like this, I panic. I think she may be dead.  I always wait a few seconds to see if she is breathing and watch to see if the sheets move.  If they move, then I know she is alive.  I do not want to check her pulse incase I wake her and startle her.

              My grandma is a wonderful person.  Yet at the same time, she is extremely vain. She never leaves her apartment without putting her lipstick on.  She even keeps her lipstick in the fridge. This is to make it last longer.  Having her hair properly styled is paramount.   She visits her hair stylist every Saturday religiously.  When I went to see her on Sunday, her silver curls were piled high on top of her head in a big messy clump.  I knew just from that alone, she needed me.