Margaret Robinson

Grandmother: Mary Padyson, 89 yrs.

Mary was a first-grade teacher. She used to read to Margaret, and taught her handwriting before she learned it in school so she would be "prepared". Margaret and her parents would visit Mary at her home in Florida twice a year, and sometimes Mary would visit them in Albany, NY during the summer. Mary and her daughter (Margaret’s mother) weren’t very close, so there wasn’t an impetus to visit a lot.

"I would always look forward to seeing her, and then once I was there I would get bored after awhile. She would always complain about how I was being raised."

Margaret’s mother, a christian, married a jewish man.

"My grandmother was always unhappy with that situation, and therefore irritated with me. A great distance was created."

Margaret doesn’t think this held Mary back from getting close to her, but did see the trouble her mother was being given for raising an a-religious child. When Margaret turned twelve she stopped wanting to spend time with Mary. She would watch T.V. or play alone in her room when she visited Mary. She said their relationship was "nonexistent". When Margaret was seventeen, her parents moved Mary to a retirement community in Albany because her health was failing. Before coming to college, Margaret deferred a year and went to London, and it was in this year that Mary’s Alzheimers became apparent.

"Looking back, we could tell that it had been happening for awhile…things that we had written off as being natural aging processes: forgetting tiny things, losing things, getting mad about forgetting."

Margaret remembers when her mother called her in London to explain what had been discovered.

"My mother – going through something I couldn’t understand. It didn’t bother me. I wasn’t thinking about it. I couldn’t understand."

Margaret went to see Mary the day after she got home. She says it wasn’t urgent, though. When she did see her, she remembers feeling shocked that the relationship had changed so suddenly and drastically. Margaret immediately began to help her mother take care of Mary: dressing her and feeding her.

"When I came back she was gone."

Margaret felt guilty that she hadn’t been a better friend to Mary while she was "still herself".

"Our relationship is better now. I say ‘I love you’ to her, which I never did before. Give her a hug or a kiss…that’s the sort of thing that comforts her now. She never wanted that before. The person she became was a more loving, caring, child-like woman."

Sometimes Margaret would go over to Mary’s house alone to help her when her mother couldn’t make it. She says it was extraordinarily upsetting to dress her grandmother.

"(I wasn’t doing it) out of want, it was more out of need. She wasn’t bathing, dressing, sleeping, or eating, she had to be instructed. My mother or I would come by several times a day and manage her; move her into the next stage of the day. It wasn’t pleasant."

Margaret says she did this out of obligation to her Mother, who was the only person taking care of Mary (being the only child). She also knew what was expected of her, as the only granddaughter.

"She (Mary) was aware that something was wrong. She was mad, very mad, and didn’t become happy again until she moved into a nursing home and could see there were people in worse condition than she was."

Mary could remember who everyone was, but she couldn’t remember her own placement and self within the memories she retained.

"At first my mother couldn’t accept what was going on, and neither could Grandma, so they were mad at each other. Neither of them knew what was going on."
"I’m still irritated with myself…I can’t believe I had no conception of what my mother was going through while I was gone. But I feel that I can make her happy when I’m with her."

Margaret worries about her mother worrying about Mary constantly.

"I feel like my mother really needs me and I can’t be there."

Margaret also worries about her Mother getting Alzheimers.

"I’m nervous about doing something that will make her (Mary) nervous or upset. I want to keep her happy and content – like a child; I don’t want them to cry, I don’t want anything to be wrong. I must act calm."

The house becomes sad when the topic is brought up.