.como la flor.

.like the flower. we wither and eventually fall apart and no longer exist. some of us just move on naturally, while just a few of us gets picked too early and begins to die.

.like my grandmother. she has Alzheimer's disease and it's eating her brain. she's had this for i'd say about 8 years now. there is no cure for this disease, just medicine that prolongs the withering of the brain but now at this time, its really no point for her to keep taking the medication.

.my memories as a child truthfully consist of me being with my biological grandmother-Mildred (my Millie) and grandfather- William (my pop-pop), my aunt Lisa, and my "grandparents" Elaine and Doug. i know that my mother and stepfather were around me clearly, but growing up, I have the most memories with them. so to just witness the people that you love the most, remember the most, and credit almost all of who you are, just wither away, especially when i look around and see those grandparents that are still in the field untouched, not withering, it kills me.

.after my grandfather passed, i felt so alone. he was the only male that stuck around in my life long enough to show me unconditional love. he had a stroke before i was born so i never heard him actually say the words but oh man the feeling was there. looking into his eyes, i knew that no man has ever loved me as much as my grandfather has. he suffered from colon cancer which ultimately took control of his whole body. i didn't want to prolong his life because he was in so much pain, yet i didn't want him to go because i knew that i would have to be the backbone that he was. -and now at this very moment im realizing the severity of my grandmother's sickness and that's when it started truly taking its toll on her-mine-our lives. see what i realized is that because my grandfather was literally on his death bed, all of my focus was on him, letting him know i love him, being around him before he left me forever- i didn't pay too much attention to the withering of my grandmother. after his death she fell into a great depression because that was her first boyfriend and the man of her dreams, the little boy that she grew up with that used to chance her around with snakes on a stick. and he wasn't there for her. he wasn't there for me. he just wasn't there.

.so here we are nearly 5 years later and i go to visit my grandmother. i talk to her often but i haven't seen her due to the fact that i'm 6 hours and 3 states and 1 district away. i go to see her today. the woman that i remember so vividly, the woman who everyone tells me i look like, the woman that helped raised me and ...

.she no longer knows who i am. she forgot me. i am no longer her "cootsie", her favorite granddaughter, her first granddaughter. i am just a pretty girl that she met today. she thought my little sister was my daughter. i'm just a being to her. nothing special as she is to me.

.i've lost one of the most special people in my life.
"what happened to the one i used to know, the one i used to laugh and talk with"
....."we used to do some many things together...."

. and now all of those things are just my memories. im tired of being abandoned by those that i need.

.i love my Millie. she's one in a Million. i just hope she never forgets that.