Today morning, when I posted this quote “The true measure of
a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good” on
thinkitover,
it was a facepalm moment for me; The
real Self Thoo time. I just reflected on what had happened the previous night. And
felt bad; very bad that I behaved so discourteously with my grandmother.
Prologue
For the records, my granny apart from being the sweetest
grandmother on earth is also Alzheimer’s patient. Most of her reliable memory
now is of her past and she doesn’t remember most of the new and fresh events of
her life. She hallucinates that whatever has happened in her life is actually
happening in the present day, at the moment. The trouble is actually here. She thinks her
uncle died today. But in real she is recalling the event which happened 65
years ago. And the part of her brain which decides between present and past
(like the planned v/s actual in agile) isn’t working to its full potential. So
if we try to make her understand that it was 65 years ago that her uncle
actually kicked the bucket, she just can’t comprehend it.
Her uncle kicking the bucket is just one thing. There are n
numbers of things that she recalls and hallucinates that it happened just now. And
the most helpless part is we can’t make her understand. Of late she has started
this new thing of getting up in the middle of the night and wanting to go out
of home, call someone, take bath, wash clothes, do the dishes and so many other
things (Yes in the middle of the night), which has disturbed my sleep to a
greater extent.
On the other hand, I’ve just recovered from the pigeon
menace which gave me sleepless nights for more than a month or so!. Most of you
know about it. So I’m not going to get into technical details of what insomnia
can do to you. May be god has decided to test my endurance under the absence of
melatonin. Long travel hours have forced me to get up early to reach office
thereby reducing my sleeping time further. All this had the combined effect on
insomnia on me.
Last night when my granny got up at around 2 in the midnight
for whatsoever reasons, it resulted in the outburst of all the fury and rage concealed
in me for more than a month. I yelled at my grandmother so badly and so loudly
that she was petrified totally. A part of it may be because of the fact that I’ve
always been her love thy kid and she never expected such a retaliating behavior
from me. But before I realized what had happened, the damage had already been
done. Thanks to my insomnia. On the other hand, I was caught in the emotional
clutter for my rude behavior and was full of guilt for what I did to her. I
couldn’t sleep. More insomnia!
Epilogue
My cousin Sameera's wife (Navya) has given birth to a baby boy. It
was her sweet desire (or orders, I must say) that my granny should hold the
child first before anyone else does. For obvious reasons, my grandmother is on
cloud nine (She was “in” cloud nine too) on being promoted to great grandmother.
The arrival of baby has cheered her to a great extent. She is overwhelmed. I too
was relaxed to see that she had come out of yesterday’s episode. I decided that
at the least I should say sorry to her and of course, she deserved it. While
coming back from the hospital, I slowly said sorry for what I did yesterday and
that I’d never repeat it ever again for which her reply was………
“What are you talking about? I’m not understanding”
I’m so glad that she’s forgotten it. I cribbed so much about
her medical condition all these days, but finally it was the same Alzheimer’s that
came to my rescue. I was out of my guilt within a second; feeling much relaxed
and happy. It was a sure shot lesson to me.
"No matter how intricate your problems are, the best solution to it lies within!"
