I never grieved you... and I'm sorry

I remember when we used to do puzzles. They were extremely cool puzzles too. They were the old style Donald Duck and Coyote and Road Runner ones, and they never got old. We did them every time I came over and we spent hours on them. You taught me the best way to do puzzles. You made sure we organised all the pieces of the same colour into groups. And after that we’d find the four corner pieces. And then it would begin. We’d be there all day, but we always finished. You were always to patient.

But then I grew up. We didn’t do puzzles anymore. We’d sometimes go to the park with my brother and later my sister too. But I continued to grow. And pretty soon I just stopped visiting as frequently as I used to. I thought I was too old for puzzles, too cool. And I never really thought about how that made you feel. But you seemed happy as long as I came to visit every so often.

Then one day you got sick. Except no one noticed at first. It wasn’t the kind of sick that antibiotics made better, it was the kind of sick the kills, the kind there is no cure for. You were slowly being taken over by both Alzheimer’s and dementia. You were forgetting little things at first. Little things that no one thought anything of. You misplaced your glasses, occasionally forgot your hat. Just little things. But then it got worse. It got noticeable. You couldn’t do puzzles anymore, you wouldn’t eat, you couldn’t go anywhere on your own and you’d get lost in your own home at night. One day you even forgot your wife, and you just kept forgetting things.

They hospitalised you on and off in the Austin. I still hate floor seven. I only visited you once there, but I don’t think you recognised me or even remembered. I don’t know how often you remembered anyone. Then you nearly died of pneumonia. The doctors brought you back to us in the ER, except they didn’t really, because you were already gone.

You spent your last weeks in the outside world in a nursing home that didn’t look after you. They didn’t make sure you ate or drank. And so, you returned to the Austin once more. The last time I saw you was in that nursing home. I wasn’t strong enough to visit you anymore after that. And that’s something I’m regretting more than four years too late.

You had a particularly vicious form of dementia, and it took you quickly – within four years. The nurses said you were young to be an advanced dementia patient, just seventy-four. It’s only saving grace is that you didn’t know. You didn’t know what was happening to you. You were suspended between earth and sky. You weren’t here with us, but you weren’t gone either. Your failing brain your jailer as we watched and waited from afar.

I can only imagine what it was like you for you, slowly losing yourself. But I lost a piece of me too. I’m sorry I didn’t visit you more while you were still all on earth. I’m sorry we didn’t go to the park again, that you had to stop pushing me on the swings. I’m sorry I didn’t visit you in the hospital, I’m sorry I wasn’t strong. The nurses said you spoke of your grandchildren often, saying how proud you were. I like to think that you’re still proud of me now.

You died on March the seventh 2008. You are no longer suspended between two existences. Now you are free. There was a funeral at St Gregory’s. You’re buried at Heidelberg. We visit on your birthday.

I’m not sure if I believe in God anymore, but I hope there’s a heaven for you. You deserve it. Life was cruel. You escaped Croatia illegally, escaping from the German occupation and against all odds you made it to Australia where you worked in construction. You helped build the Monash Hospital. Mum still points out the buildings in the city that you helped build. You worked hard your whole life, and your mind turned on you. I hope there is a heaven, for you.

This was supposed to be a speech, but instead I’m writing to you. I didn’t grieve properly when you died, I just wanted to forget. And now I’m crying as I write this because I’m remembering all the little things and missing them, missing you. I’m sorry I don’t visit more. I mean to, but it’s hard. I didn’t tell you that I loved you enough either. I’m sorry for that too. I love you Nonno, always have, always will.

I do puzzles on my own now, the way you showed me.