DO HARD THINGS: Part 2

THE MOMENT:

I remember the last time I saw my Grandma Versocki.

She was ninety-six and in a nursing home. As we entered the room, she looked at each of us with emptiness. She didn’t recognize anyone. She was afraid, and scared and sad. She yelled for the nurses.?She wanted us removed from her room.?We were strangers to her.

Her body had outlived her mind.

This was the women who was more of a mom to me than my own mom was.

I was devastated.

THE PAST:

Growing up in a single parent home, I was the youngest of four born in five years. At 5, my parents divorced. My mom was amazing and sometimes she worked two and three jobs, just to keep food on the table. But she could only do so much.

I spent a lot of time with my grandma.

THE WOMAN:

My grandma was a former English major and special education teacher. She grew up with more opportunity than most women had. She married a coal miners’ son. He was a man who made opportunities happen. They were the epitome of love, opposites some would point out. A part of her was taken when he passed at 76. She went on to live 20 years without him.

She saw some of me in her.? As I grew, our bond grew. I know I saw a side of her my siblings, even my mother, her own daughter, didn’t see.

She was the original storyteller. She could captivate an audience without trying. I admired that about her. She knew I had a knack for writing and storytelling. She encouraged me to lean into it, to embrace it. She taught me confidence.? She taught me how to walk tall when I felt doubt. She wasn’t easy on me, she pushed me. At times, she was really tough on me. She checked my report cards, making sure I was living up to her expectations.

She knew me so well, when she met my husband, two months into dating, she told me if I did not marry him, she would!

THE SLOW LOSS:

It started when she was eighty. Her body started to outlive her mind.

She started struggling with thought processing.?She would start something and forget what she was doing.?She would get confused and lash out in anger. Eventually she lost track of dates and even years. In the final years, she had difficulty communicating, her memory was fading faster, and she started to withdraw from friends and family.

The worst moment, the moment I described above, was the worst. She had lost all memory of me, of all of us.

Although she was never diagnosed, and we will never know, she had all the symptoms of Alzheimer’s. From the small minor changes to becoming strangers to this woman we loved, as a family we were all effected. My mom carried the hardest part. For fifteen of my grandma’s last 16 years, my mom she was not just the head of the household, but she was her caretaker.

Barbara Nash Carrington Versocki became my angel in 2009.

RIDE TO REMEMBER:

Today, six million Americans currently live with Alzheimer's. There are over eleven million caregivers. There are millions who have lost a loved one to this disease.

In my Grandma V’s memory this past weekend my husband and I rode in a charity ride called the ALZ Ride across South Carolina. It is 255 miles, across three days, on bicycles.

The first day was a 65 mile ride, the second day was 90 miles and the final day of the ride was 100 miles. All three days were hot, the hottest so far this year in South Carolina. But on the final day, the heat index was 102, the road heat was 111 and the sun was shining bright.

The whole ride was hard, really hard.

But I wasn't alone. We stopped at all the stops, thanked all of the volunteers, filled our bellies and our water bottles and got back on our bikes.

The notable moments were the few times we stopped, poured ice over our heads, looked each other in the eyes, and said “we got this”. We knew we were doing this for something bigger than ourselves.

The 2023 ALZ Ride across South Carolina raised over $1 million dollars this year. This money will go to Discovery Science, Early Detection, Treatments and Prevention.

So, the point in all this rambling, DO HARD THINGS, but while you do hard things, choose hard things that help others.

??G