If only you knew how it hurt me so to watch you suffer like this. To watch your mind deteriorate, and your eyes go. If only you knew how I miss when I was young, because we would always do everything together. If only you knew how much pain I am going through when I ask you to recall things we did, and you come up with nothing.

I know, I'm being selfish once again. You are the one with the real pain. With the embarrassment of having a disease like Parkinson's shake your hand constantly day in and day out. I am being selfish, because I don't know what you are feeling, what you are thinking.

The other day I went to the doctor with you Grandma, do you remember? We went all went out to eat first, remember? No? well, anyways. My mom tried to prepare me for the news, she told me over and over again that it wasn't going to be good. And when we sat there in the waiting room I read up on crueler disease, like leprosy, and such. I wondered what it was like to live with a disease like that. And the doctor called us into his office. He sat us down, and told us the news. You have Alzheimers.

It was all I could do to stop from crying. Everything is happening at once grandma. First the house is gone, then it's you having Parkinson's, then it's me almost failing Biology, now it's this. This, is something I don't know if I can handle. I can handle all the others. All the others we went through I was the "strong" one. I was the one who stood tall next to my mom and let her lean on me. Never once a tear shed. 24 hour care? You won't be living on your own anymore Grandma. You will move in with us. I don't know if I can handle that either. Watching you from afar is much easier to me then watching you 24 hours. 24 hours of your trying to tie your shoes, and take 3 or 4 chances of getting up from that chair, 24 hours of those mashed potatoes that were too slimy because you put way too much milk in them. I'm being selfish again I know.

What are you going through? Do you know what you are going through? I went to the doctor the other day with you Grandma. Do you remember? You were complaining about headaches, and such. And it turned up. Right smack dab on the back of your brain. A tumor. Benign, or so they say. It will do no damage. But now you start complaining that you are unable to see, even when you have those 2 inch thick glasses on. We take you again to the doctor. Now, the tumor is making you go blind Grandma. It is pressing against your optical nerve.

My mom told me this morning that if she ever gets like you are she will kill herself. I remember the doctor telling me that most patients die of malnutrition. They forget to eat. So now each morning, we go over there before I go to school, and we eat with you. My mom gives you your pills. And I head to school. I don't know if I can handle much more Grandma. You were always the one I would talk to when I was young. Now I am 16. And even though I can't talk to you, I find myself constantly writing you letters. Letters of sorrow, and letters of joy.

I wish you would come back to us.