Forever

My own little adventure in looking for love this month has made me think a lot about what it means to find someone to share life's whole journey with. How improbable, really, to find someone who you want to spend your youth with and to love that person so much that you hardly realize it when old age comes and it is almost time for death to part you. My rational head tells me that all of my hopes for that are just fantasy. It's like winning the love lottery. I don't know if I will ever find it. I know, though, that my grandparents found love like that. I feel lucky just to watch that.

They married at sixteen. Today they are seventy-two. My grandmother has Alzheimer's, and we are starting to see the effects. It is hard for all of us, but of course it is hardest for my granddad.

My grandmother has been seeing a doctor who is doing experimental treatments. He had to tell my granddad that he has to start driving with her to evaluate her driving and to decide if she can continue to drive independently. My granddad reacted angrily. "He's right though, the doctor, I mean," I said to him, "If there was an accident it wouldn't be worth it."

"I know," he said, "It's just that if I took away driving from her it would be such a blow to her." My mom told me that she thinks it would be hard on him to have to drive her everywhere, but I know it's not that because I know him. It just breaks his heart to let her suffer in this disease and he wishes he could bare the burdens himself.