The sad things in life...

As I read all these books about pregnancy I see the importance of getting good prenatal care, eating healthy, and taking your prenatal vitamins. Which brings me to think about my 7th grade student who is 13…. she is a couple months ahead of me. I am guessing she will probably have her baby in March or April. Can you imagine…being thirteen and getting ready to have a baby? I am having a hard time imagining how this will all work out at 25 and I have a husband. This poor young girl hardly ever comes to school, sleeps when she comes and lives in one of the worst projects in Winston-Salem. I wonder if she is getting the good prenatal care all pregnant women deserve?

On another non-pregnancy note we just found out my 83 year old grandfather has Alzheimer’s. We knew he had been losing his memory for a while now, but he has finally seen a doctor that has announced the news. My grandfather’s reaction to the doctor’s statement is “I am not brain dead, that doctor said I am brain dead.” My grandfather I guess thinks nothing is wrong with him, but his short-term memory is defiantly going. He always has to ask my grandmother what day it is and he has been getting up at 12 midnight thinking it is time to start his day.

Recently he has been taking medication for his Alzheimer, but the doctor told him he could not drive…what??? He could not understand why he couldn’t drive. He said without being able to drive he could not go to work on the farm and he might as well die. This is a man who for 83 years has worked—physically on golf courses as the superintendent, and on my cousins’ farm for everyday of his life, probably at least 12 hours a day. This man defines himself by his work.

What is hardest for me…is not that he doesn’t know who I am—I am sure that will come, but is to see him suffer. He cries at night because he knows he is losing it. My grandmother is a great woman and she has stood beside papaw for 60 long years, but she is suffering. My mom, (who is also a lot like her father) a tough, strong woman is suffering. It’s hard to see those you love so much struggle, and feel so much pain that they don’t know what to do.