A light clicked on

Wow, today we had one of those one of a kind amazing moments. Let me give you some background...

My granny has Alzheimer's. It's really bad. She's been in a home for years now and was placed there after running away from "some old man in her house" which was of course my papa. She doesn't remember people, she can hardly talk, she eats her food only after it's been blended and that's only when she is even willing to open her mouth. My papa visits her every other day and feeds her and the rest of us have a hard time visiting regularly, it's just soo sad to see the shell of what once was my granny.

The last 2 times I have seen her was the day after my wedding, Oct 26th 2008 that would be, we showed her our rings and gave her the corsage that we had for her and she seemed to understand. She held both my hand and Kris' hands together and seemed to get that we were married. Then I went to see her when I was pregnant once and she didn't exactly seem to catch on that I had a baby in my tummy, but we tried to make her understand. The last true semi-coherent day that we knew she understand everyone who was there (she always seems to figure papa out of course since he goes daily, she at least knows he is someone who always goes to visit even if she doesn't always know it's her husband if that makes sense....) was that day after my wedding. It's been a long while since we'd seen her smile and laugh.

TODAY: We saw that light click on again. She hadn't seen Aiden yet, we wanted him to be a bit older before we took him to the home, today was the day. My papa brought her up to the front where they have a room for family functions to minimize germs and he opened the front door for us. I came in holding Aiden and walked around the corner to see granny and immediately she just LIT UP! She had the biggest smile on her face the moment she saw me holding Aiden and she started saying "Look at him" - now it was very stuttery, but I heard her saw it. I almost cried, it was such a moment. God gave us a great gift, he gave her a gift.

The rest of the visit was wonderful. I fed him because he was mid-bottle when we got there, and she just sat watching me. I asked her who he looked like, just to chat - not expecting a response, and she looked straight at Kris. Then she even asked Kris how he was! I also was asking my papa about a family friend and said "Do you remember Kathy?" and clear as day my granny looked up at the same moment papa did and said "yes". It was sweet. She really did seem to be there and understand our conversations.

When it came time for her to hold him I asked her if she wanted to and she lifted up her arms to get him. She doesn't use her left arm, most the time it just sits to her side, and in the pics you can see that she had her left arm wrapped around his waist, she just knew what to do, she always loved babies soo much. Especially baby boys...

The 2 nurses who came out to help and see the baby even commented multiple times about how "Cleta never smiles like this", "Look how happy she is", "She really knows what's going on". To hear them who see her daily even say how great this was just made my day, my week... We will be taking Aiden again for Christmas, because even if he may get germs and a cold, he helped Granny more than I ever expected. Giving her days where she understands and is happy for a few moments was worth it.