Alzheimer 's Disease is a chronic neurodegenerative disease that results in the victim losing his or her memory, bodily functions, and ultimately, life. It is a truly horrific disease that affects not only the patient, but his or her family. I was unfortunate enough to be in the family of such a patient for the first twelve years of my life. I would not wish this condition on anyone and would gladly dedicate my time and energy to bear witness to its end. My grandfather was an attorney in my hometown for many years and, contrary to popular belief about lawyers, was a decent and honest man. I always relished visiting my grandmother and him at Christmas time when he would always have a model train set up for myself and my cousins. We would play …show more content…
In the twilight years of his life he was unable to perform any bodily task alone. Seeing this wide-eyed old man sitting at the dinner table with a scared look on his face wearing an adult diaper and half-way buttoned-up shirt was one of the saddest things that I have ever seen. The man who had once watched my cousins and me play with the model train as a kid had departed long ago. All that was left was a scared, empty husk of a man behind. When I heard about his death, I was sitting in my 6th grade technology class one Wednesday morning trying to activate the cheat codes for Space Pinball 3000 when I was called down to the office. There was my mother. She spoke, "Opa had a stroke this morning, he died." I did not cry. I felt a sense of relief, not just because I got to check out of school early, but for my whole family. Oma no longer had to worry about him getting lost or cleaning up after him, my family no longer saw visiting her house as a chore, and I got to miss school for the rest of that week. The funeral saw few dry eyes as he was interred. Afterwards we went back to Oma 's house to comfort her. She grieved, for awhile, and now lives independently, but she will never forget what her husband went through and the strain that it put