There’s a lot of lousy news a sixteen-year-old can get. Finding out your 86-year-old grandma is coming to live in your house is not so bad. But finding out she is going to share your already too small bedroom is right up there with discovering a zit on your forehead the morning of school pictures. To be fair, my grandma wasn’t jumping for joy either. She’d been living alone for more than twenty years and needed her personal space. MAKE TRANSITION STRONGERSadly, my grandma began having some memory issues and could not drive anymore. She often would forget or choose not to eat. In her heyday, she loved life and never sat still and it seemed that getting old age started to take a toll on her zest for life. Our family decided it would be our goal …show more content…
Why did she have to sleep in my room? Why do I have to spend all this time with her? Would I have to give up all of my closet space to accommodate her? TRANSITION OK? I did not exactly offer it, and she seemed reluctant to ask. I took initiative and carefully guided us through the initial fumblings.
Soon, I discovered I liked my roommate Grandma better than my former roomer, my sister Mallory. She expressed interest in my day and wanted to hear about my friends. Grandma loved to offer advice on every issue we discussed. She would start with, “I remember when my friend Dee…” and the advice would turn into a funny story involving her friends or eleven brothers and sisters.
I began to look forward to our nightly talks. Asking her about growing up in the “olden days” gave me a whole new perspective on her. As the oldest child in our respective families, we commiserated about how we had to be the one to help with everything. From tying Mable’s shoes to making sure Mallory doesn’t take candy from strangers we recalled many nuisances we endured. She talked about times when she experienced disappointment, happiness, and scared. The more she shared, the more I wanted to