My granddaughter turns 10 today. She has always been her Poppy's girl, we kind of have a bond. I'm the only grandfather she has ever, or ever will, known. She realizes that her Poppy is having memory issues and doesn't participate in as many things as I used to. I haven't tried to hide my condition from her. But I don't push it at her either. Intellectually, she's probably ready to enter college. Emotionally, she's a 10-11 year old.
Yesterday, she brought me a book that she is very excited about and asked that I read it so that we could discuss it. Normally, I would have pleaded the inability to read it due to the size of the text and my poor vision but this was in extra large type and, with effort, I could read it. There is no audio equivalent to fall back upon.
She can cite facts from nearly any portion of the book without hesitation. I, on the other hand, can't concentrate long enough to read a chapter and remember what I've read. Heck, most of the time I need to go back to the beginning of the paragraph to understand what the end of the paragraph related to.
And therein lies my quandary. How do I tell this beautiful 10 year old that her Poppy has deteriorated to the point that I can't read a page, comprehend it, and remember the information. She has always known me as someone who could do whatever I set my mind to, a very capable person. Now please don't misunderstand. I'm not afraid of looking weak in her eyes. I'm afraid of scaring her. I don't want to put more out there than she's capable of handling and possibly giving her the fear of my imminent loss. As I said, she is very intelligent and if I tell her I can't comprehend the information she is going to want to know why. And in depth. And I'm not into big secrets, but I'm all about age appropriateness too.
So, there's where I'm at. I've got to come to some decision. My wife suggests reading just enough to give her a few questions and get her started explaining everything to me. She, much more than likely, will take over from there. I think this is probably the way I will go. My wife, she's a wise one. But I'm also open to any good suggestions you kind folks may have. So dig deep. I'm waiting.
Randy
