my grandmother has been 'forgetting things' or at least that is what my father and his siblings call it. my brother and i, on the other hand, have done our little bit of research and think she is suferring from a light form of dementia or maybe the onset of alzheimer's. she repeats stuff and mixes up people, worries about not sending us a card and a check on our birthday and asks us constantly about it. stuff like that.

she has been afraid of leaving her apartment, lately, asking the staff at her residence to bring her food up instead of eating it downstairs with the other residents. she's only come out twice this year, once when i came back from china and my dad announced before she had time to phone back to cancel that he was on his way to pick her up. the second time was for christmas.

she was sitting on the couch, looking happy to be there mostly, a bit tired with the 20+ people crowd and the kids running around with video games and hockey sticks, but happy. we asked my little cousin to distribute the presents. she's one and half years old so needless to say it took forever ("no, not that aunt, the one with the red hair") but was endlessly amusing. at one point, of course, there was only my little counsin's gifts left to be opened so someone asked my grandmother to hold on to the gift until the kid was done opening the other one. my grandma, in her usual confused state, started opening the present and looked very surprise when she saw that someone had given her a doll. she made a face and said with great suprise: "a doll!" it was priceless!

we eventually explained to her that the doll was meant as a gift to c., the little cousin, and she seemed to get it. she played with the doll the rest of the evening, though, impressed by what you could do with doll these days. "my, would you look at that! her eyes close when you lay her down. and you can even give her the bottle," she said cheerfully.

next year, grandma, i'm ditching the microwaves, VCRs and all those other funny machines that you don't really use all that much. i'm getting you a doll.