Grief Neverending

This morning, I decided to go to a local coffee shop to read a bit and just hang out. This is something I used to do regularly before the heartbreak of Alzheimer's was visited upon us.

The young women who work at the shop are so beautiful and vibrant and encouraging. Today, though, one of them shared with me that her grandfather was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's. She was telling me all the things she is learning, reading, experiencing. The progression of this disease can be rapid or slow, but it seems to take a parallel path with the family, no matter the speed.

First the disbelief and shock and denial. Then the learning curve as family members do their best to discover all they can to help their loved one and to understand what's happening. Acceptance is picked up, examined, and put down. And denial is revisited. With every Facebook post about dietary changes, coconut oil, new research on the other side of the globe, promising medications, and anecdotal stories, hope rises. Then crashes angrily. Despair pays a visit, as nothing that's tried seems to make a lasting impact on the condition of the loved one.

Grief, which started with the diagnosis, ebbs and flows throughout, like the tide. It comes with each downturn following every plateau that looked like a new normal, but wasn't. It comes with every realization that decline is inevitable, with every lost memory, with every lost skill, with every lost function. Grief dashes hopefulness onto rocks of despair, slowly, slowly tearing at the veil of illusion. It rips your heart into a million pieces. Over and over again.

It's relentless. It follows you into your dreams, so you get no rest even if you have a chance to sleep. It's always there, patiently waiting for the time when you're weakest so it can send you another crushing blow. It does not lighten with time, because it's always fresh. Every day. Multiple times a day. And you know it's going to be fresh every day, multiple times a day, in every day to come until the end inexorably arrives someday. And then it will sucker punch you again, but in a different way.

I am exhausted from grief never ending. I am tired of grieving over and over and over and over in a process that repeats itself again and again and again. For years. And years to come. It's enough to drive someone mad. I don't know what people do who have no faith. I don't know how they can emotionally survive this torture. Bless them with Your presence, Lord. To be grief stricken is one thing, but to have no hope as well? I shudder to imagine it.