I got a job. I'm psyched about that. It doesn't start until April 5th so I have another two weeks to be irresponsible and not feel guilty. Unfortunately, I'm wasting some of that time feeling nervous about whether or not I will be successful in this job. It's a sales job which I'm not completely ecstatic about and it's going to require a consistent amount of effort on my part. The good news is that if I put in a lot of effort, I should be rewarded with more money (this is how sales jobs work). The benefits appear to be great and there is an incentive trip I can go on if I do really well... The job is pretty much exactly where I want to be geographically. It's right off our "L" line and two blocks from Kate's office so I can keep tabs on her.
I just got home yesterday from visiting my parents. I went to Middletown in order to see my grandfather who had been staying with my parents for the last three weeks. That was tough. He has pretty advanced Alzheimers. He's basically not a person anymore. At least, he's not the person he was. The only remnant of who he was is his laugh which he still offers quite liberally. It's a little haunting actually. It's almost impossible to interact with him. He can handle yes/no questions (or at least give a yes/no response) but anything more than that is not really happening. Part of what makes it so awful is that he is very healthy physically. His arms and legs are still relatively strong and he had a pacemaker put in about ten years ago (whether or not that choice was a good one has been the source of some debate) so his heart isn't going to give out on him any time soon. So, it appears that he is doomed to have his mental faculties degrade further and further until the universe has pity on him. I saw him at Christmas and he seemed worse than when I saw him in May for my wedding. This week, he seemed worse than when I saw him at Christmas. My mom claimed that she had noticed a decline in the three weeks that he had been there.
It's difficult to organize my thoughts about this because it's such an emotional thing. Not everything makes sense. So many thoughts and emotions about this issue swirl around inside my head. His quality of life has declined so dramatically but he seems relatively content. Every once in awhile he gets a little agitated but mostly he's just happy to sit and "watch" TV. It seems like a miserable existence to me but I'm able to compare his current state to what he used to be like. I'm not sure that he can do that. These days, his life consists of watching TV, eating lots of ice cream, looking at old photo albums with his kids (not that he knows who they are) and sleeping wherever and whenever he pleases. Maybe he's just happy being in the present and doesn't think about the fact that up until he was 75 years old (and I think even older than that), he played tennis every day of his life and he can't do that anymore. I don't know....maybe it's not awful for him to live through, but it's certainly awful for me to watch.
