I learned today that my mother’s father Milo has Alzheimer’s.

My father’s mother’s mother Myrtle had Alzheimer’s also, and I suspect my father’s mother, Joan, has it too. She is sixty- seven years old, and the only thing she has ever said to or about me is

“Sarah’s always liked milk. She’ll never get osteoporosis.”

True enough.

She says it quite often, though.

I’m frankly a little worried about Alzheimer’s rather than osteoporosis. My memory is more important to me than my bones.

I don’t know Milo too well, and as time goes on, I don’t think I will ever really get to know him. He was not a caring father to my mother, to hear her tell it anyway, and has washed her redemption as well as ours from his hands. If he remembered, anyway. I guess Christmas cards are all I really expect from grandparents. (Witnesses don’t celebrate Christmas; my mother has always taken these yearly reminders as an intentional insult; I can now believe Milo honestly forgot our ‘morals’)

The rest of my mother’s family alternately hates or pities us for not being Good Catholics. Or not being rich & living in Michigan & being accountants & collecting Lladros. Whichever is the greater sin.

My mother still cries sometimes about the loss of her brother & sister, who could never understand her, and didn’t seem to love her as children.

Children are harsh, and if my mom really did have the same sort of temperament as my sister, I can almost understand. Aunt Debbie #1 never struck me as a particularly understanding sort of girl. I've never been Catholic enough to enjoy the courtesy of her conversation, so I suppose I really don't know.

My mother’s mother died in 1974 of cancer, when my mother was 19 years old. Her sister was in college, her brother returning from the war, and her father flirting in the hospital wings with the woman who too quickly became her stepmother.

I think in many ways, my mother never got past that. She never forgave herself for disowning her mother’s faith, never forgave herself for her father’s actions, never forgave herself for not being the sort of person Debbie would love.

I am 19 years old, and in many ways more mature than my mother. I have the temperament of my father, and the visage of my mother; all taken I’m quite lucky to have the genes I’ve got. (Funny story! Once, my dad pointed this out to me, and said ‘what if it had been the other way around? Lookin’ like me & actin’ like your mother? Wait, you’d be Rachel!’ Then he laughed himself purple. Funny, funny, but not really very nice)

I don't think my mother can understand me as a person who's more mature than her, who looks for solutions to this world in places other than the Truth. I'll believe for a long time that there is truth out there, but not such exclusive Truth. I should really find a way to tell her that.

But anyway.

I’ve decided there still is hope for my sister. She likes my music, anyway. She was listening to an Ani mix I made tonight before sleeping.

“she’s nineteen going on thirty, or maybe she’s thirty already, it’s hard to keep up with time once it’s on it’s way”

Ah, ani. Ani, Ani, Ani.

So Ani suggested a book to me. (and the other thousand people in the audience; but that’s not the point.) The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver. At first, I was like, dear Ani, ya shoulda suggested a better book to me! Novels are very tedious. But it grew & grew & grew & suddenly that book summarized so many lives perfectly, as well as everything I’ll probably ever know about Africa. Wow wow wow.

“sunrise tantalize, evil eyes hypnotize”

“jesus is bangala!”

I’m such a sucker for Jesus jokes, you don’t even know.

I’m in love with Adah, and Leah a little, and somehow their sister Rachel reminded me of my own Rachel, but I don’t think our fate will turn out that way. I hope hope hope Rachel grows up. Someday, Angeline. If not, I hereby promise to love her anyway.

She’ll probably be as thoroughly unforgetting and emotional as my mother, and I truly don’t want another one of those to live with. If the Alzheimer’s doesn’t get her first, anyway.

Alzheimer’s. I mean, really, what a horrible disease! To really forget who you are, to see your children and not recognize them. (to see Rachel & call her Ralph, thanks, grandma, but golly, at least I had a good laugh then)

“How many lamps? One, two, three, four, five, five lamps!” I’m sure Myrtle gave me more that spoken in her Tennessee accent, but not that I can think of.

So, yeah. Um, dunno. Eto….

Today I saw myne old friend, Christina. She’s great, and she’s doing great. Better than I’d expect, anyway. Back in the day, I always thought she’d live a life of mysery, never quite measuring up to our unforgiving Jehovah, believing, but never having the dedication to be a Good Witness.

She surprises me, then. She has so many plans, goals, ambitions. She’s a little unsure how to do them, how to get started on anything, but I think she’ll be fine. She loves photography, mythology, the prospect of travel. I’m happy for her faith, which is to say I don’t see much of a vestige of one. Because I know so many ex- witnesses who can never come clean to any God, spending all their lives praying & feeling inadequate to be ever be heard.

O, but you know it’s the Truth, with a capital T. You’ve got that right, with a capital T.

I also realize how lucky I am. I have the most amazing father ever. I don’t think I tell him that enough.

I should work on that.

Then I went home & did some laundry, which is not an activity that makes me generally appreciate my father, but it’s easier than paying rent I suppose. I talked to Tony for awhile, which was very good. Because it always is. Then I finished my book.

Reading is a very greedy activity.

Oh, well. More on that later, don't worry sweetie.

I should give more A's for effort, & I'd have the spirit to if only some of my teachers did too.

I declare this day (& this week) a draw.

  ¶ 22:31