Her abandoned memories

I had a grandmother that was always so strong. Always so assertive and always so content. I had a grandmother that lived for over 20 years after the passing of her husband, who kept her normal routines, every day. A grandmother who took pride in dressing nicely, inviting people over for a cup of coffee and who watered her potted plants twice a week. My grandmother knitted in her chair by the window, always wore slippers indoors and said her prayers every night, before going to bed alone. Then suddenly I had a grandmother who wasn’t strong, assertive and content anymore. I had a grandmother that forgot to eat. Forgot to feed the birds. A grandmother who occasionally had a hard time remembering who I was. But even though her grasp on the world was slipping away, even though her memory was crumbling and her days were more grey than colourful, she still kept to her routines. The one familiarity in all that was suddenly so unfamiliar around her. This is my artistic representation of what it felt like, watching someone so close to me struggle with the darkness, strangeness and loneliness of losing their memory. How desperately they want to hold on to the few familiar things they have left, just to feel like the person they once were, one more time.