The white Cadillac Deville came to a stop in front of the building.  The plush velour seat, soothing on my legs, was in direct contrast with my discomfort.  My grandfather opened the car door and I stepped out swallowing the lump synonymous with this ritual.  I followed a few steps behind, head hung in an effort to compose myself. 

Only 8 years old, I was required to handle myself with the poise of an adult.  Despite visiting only once or twice a year, it never got easier.  Mild-mannered and kind, Grampy had gotten angry when I once suggested I was too sick to join him.  He turned to me now and spoke in a stern, but low tone, "Be polite to everyone.  And smile."  He seemed disappointed by my palpable discomfort and I was, in turn, ashamed and confused.

He was so different that day from the man I knew; the man whose story-telling and laughter commanded the room.  My grandfather, a captain of industry, handsome and refined, was usually doting and playful with his grandchildren.  He had the respect and admiration of everyone who knew him.  I adored everything about him.  All but this. 

As he pulled the door open I was assaulted by a familiar blast of heat-infused odor threatening my nausea and tears. I knew I couldn't cry in front of him. Not here.  Why would anyone want to come here?  Why would he do this day after day?  My mind grappled with the possibilities. 

We walked the long corridor to the front desk, passing room after room.  I stared at my reflection in the toes of my polished maryjanes, each stride an exercise in avoiding attention from any of the patients sitting in the hallway.  While my grandfather signed us in, I glanced sideways driven by sheepish curiosity.  A man in a wheelchair stared vacantly ahead as an occasional drop of drool escaped his lips.  His bony limbs, exposed despite his crocheted throw, repulsed and frightened me.  Untouched plates of monochromatic mush lined carts along one wall as a patient yelled in the distance.

"Say hello to Sister Mary Kate," my grandfather instructed, rousing me from my consideration.

I looked up, knowing I was expected to perform the role of the poised granddaughter; it was not a performance I relished. 

"Hello," I said behind a strained smile.

"Your grandmother will be so happy to see you, dear," she said, though I think we both knew that wasn't so.

My grandfather turned and walked to her door as he had every single day since he had been forced to bring her here two years before.  I gulped in one last breathe of composure and followed him to her bedside, terrified to see her. 

Six months had passed since my last visit and she looked evermore frail.  Her hair, once regularly styled to perfection, was matted and greasy.  Thinner, paler, and with eyes more distant, she lay before us staring at some unknown point in space.

My mother's greatest regret was that I hadn't ever known her mother, my grandmother.  She spoke often of her elegance and grace.  Initially, her Alzheimer's had manifested in subtle ways; a forgotton common word, a second drink poured when the first was still full.  I was always told how thrilled she was when I was born; the girl she knew my mother needed.  Yet, by the time I reached five, nurses had moved in to care for her and I only knew the confusion that went with being around her.

"She was a lovely person," my mother would tell me.  "She wore the most beautiful hats."  "She and Grampy went to such glamorous parties and she was over the moon about you."  My mother would rattle off these highlights so unrelated, yet rendering a perfect picture.  I had seen the photographs and heard the stories but this fragile person now hunched and propped with pillows bore no resemblance.  Ironically, my favorite photo captured what my mother called "the beginning of the end".  They are seated at dinner, he in his tux, she in a stunning silk gown, looking elegant and every bit the cohesive "it" couple.  There's a slight vacancy in her gaze, seemingly irrelevant at the time, that only now speaks volumes. 

Back in this dank and lifeless room, her devoted husband of 50 years feigned an enthusiam usually reserved for infants.  "Hi, darling," he said an octave higher than normal.  He sat at her bedside and took her hand in his.  "This is your granddaughter."  He reached and pulled me closer to the bed as if my presence would somehow jar her out of a ten-years-in-the-making vegetative state.  "She's named after you," he continued.

He began to gently shake her hand, the desperation mounting in his voice.  "Kathleen?" he pleaded.  "Don't you know me? Can't you remember?"  His body collapsed and he began sobbing, his head buried in her pillow.  He seemed desperate for a moment that would not be.  Was there a glimmer of hope that some miracle would return her to him, only to be extinguished with each visit?

Watching him I realized that my grandfather wept for a moment of recognition, of reciprocation, from the love of his life.  He had spent his fortune on her care, his heart on her comfort, his energy on clinging to a happiness once vowed til death do us part.  I had pictures and stories as references; he had lived the memories. 

In an instant he gathered himself as I stepped backwards out of the room knowing I was intruding on their private ritual and embarassed by his break down.  I watched from the hallway as he stood up, smoothed her hair down and shaking with equal parts age and emotion, gently kissed her lips.  She never moved; hardly even blinked.  But I hoped that some part of her had kissed him back.

Safe in the hallway, I relinquished the tears I could no longer control.  I had blamed my agony on the smells and the people, but I realized that at barely 8 years old, my heart could not bear such devotion, such love, nor such heartache.  I now understood why he might have been cross with me.  He must have been equally defeated by her lack of improvement and mournful of losing her companionship.  My selfish reluctance nullified his fond memories and accentuated her vacancy.  I can’t imagine he had the strength for both of us, nor the ability to consider my feelings.  I grew in that moment to appreciate his private zone of sorrow and to respect it as a perpetual greiving for a life neither here, nor over.  Entering this place day after day was the purest imaginable display of love and fidelity.

Moments passed and my grandfather joined me in the hallway.  He didn't seem mad anymore, yet I did my best to avoid his eyes.  As we made the slow trek back down the hallway, past the desolate rooms, past the man now slumped in his wheelchair, past the orderly changing bed linens, he reached down, took my hand and squeezed. 

Eight years later my grandmother died, leaving him to mourn her phsyical loss as well as his entire routine and purpose for living.  He remained active; travelling, reading and staying with my family for months at a time and while he appeared lively, I can only imagine he yearned for his inevitable reunion. On one such visit, six years after her death, he became ill enough to stay and ride out his time with us.  When the priest finally came to read him his last rites, he closed his eyes and whispered, "Kathleen...I'm coming." 

I had witnessed their lives together vicarously through his stories and emotionally through his actions.  What I once mistook for obligation was selfless care of the purest intent.  His was a story of dedication and unwavering support; of the kind of love even obvious through the eyes of a child.