Personal Narrative: My Grandfather's Presence Of Illness

he presence of illness affects everyone in different ways. My grandfather was diagnosed with a form of dementia in the late fall of 2009 and passed away in the fall of 2016. This drawn out battle with dementia brought out sides of my family members that I did not know existed.

I was nine when my grandfather was diagnosed, and unable to fully grasp what was happening to him and why he was not quite the lively, caring grandfather I had always known. I think that the first moment I realized he was sick was in the airport on our way back from visiting my aunt in Washington, D.C. for Thanksgiving. My grandfather had worked overseas for most of his life and was accustomed to traveling and being in high stress situations, but in this instance, he kept forgetting what he needed to pass through security and kept misplacing his ID. He lived in Africa for many years, he dealt with dictators and foreign officers, he was stranded in a wildlife preserve and had to walk to find help, coming face to face with lions, so finding his ID and boarding pass should have been a cakewalk for him. At nine years old, one is just old enough to remember people,

My sister and I are five years apart, she was four when he was diagnosed, and I now realize that the man that I looked at and saw as someone who was a shell of his former vibrant self, was, in fact the only grandfather that she had known, and she did not remember him as anything different. Each time we entered his room, she would go right over to him and would start talking to him like he understood her, she would color and play with him and he would light up. Although we do not think he was able to understand that she was his granddaughter, we know that he know something was different and that this little girl, coloring with him, was important to him in some