Gradual acceptance

By Vanessa F

“It’s like your brain slowly forgets your past memories… until eventually, you don't have any anymore.” This is Yerba Buena High School junior Jessica Brasil’s experience with Alzheimer’s disease.

Her grandmother, Maria Martins, has been diagnosed with it. Eventually, her grandfather passed away of a heart attack, leaving her grandmother and family behind, left to pick up the pieces.

Some fond memories of her grandparents before her grandmother’s diagnosis include baking with her grandmother, and her grandfather watching soccer on T.V. She described their relationship as “a fighting one… you get old, and you live with someone for so long. Like yelling, almost.”

When her grandfather passed away, Brasil was in elementary school, and was picked up by her father to go home. She thought this was strange.

She said, “We came home, and everybody was, like, crying. I was little, so I didn't understand much. I thought people were joking, because Portuguese people, we do dark jokes.”

After realizing what was going on, and seeing her resilient dad crying, she cried too.

Shortly after, Brasil was forced to move houses because her family realized her grandmother could not live on her own. Their families lived next to each other in a duplex, so the move itself was not too difficult. However, the emotional part of it was.

“When we moved, things changed.” Brasil recalled, “Like, my mom started taking care of, you know, my grandma, instead of, like, I don’t know, hanging out more with us.”

The loss of her grandfather affected everyone, even her grandma with Alzheimer’s.

Brasil picked up on this, even as a young child. “After he passed, she kinda got depressed. I don't know if she got better, and you can't really tell because she started to lose her memory.”

Brasil’s grandmother also does not seem to be getting better. Brasil has come to accept her condition, and the inevitable worsening of it. “She doesn’t really know anybody, and she doesn’t remember anything, so it's kinda sad. The doctor thinks she will get her memory back, but she won’t, so she just gets worse.”

“I don’t think normal people my age take care of their grandmas,” Brasil said.

Brasil shared the hardships of having to take care of an elderly person as a teenager, how she can’t do what she truly wants to, which is hang out with her cousin and sister, because she helps care for her grandmother. Brasil also commented on the instability of Alzheimer’s disease, how on some days it is more difficult to communicate with her grandma even in her native language, Portuguese. But, Brasil still manages to accomplish it.

Taking care of an elderly relative is hard, but even more difficult when they have Alzheimer’s disease. With an unbreakable spirit and lots of understanding, Jessica Brasil has learned how to accept her grandfather’s passing and her grandmother’s incurable condition.