It’s tough to watch your grandparents get old. They start to have a lot of more serious health problems, and spend more time in the hospital.

And while I don’t normally air family laundry on the internet, it’s tough to watch how my mom is dealing with this, so I need at least somewhere to mentally vomit.

My grandma is in the early stages of Altzheimers. Our family has gone through similar with my great-grandma, who had dementia before she passed away. So mental illness isn’t new to our family. We’re all very patient with my grandma, and honestly, my grandpa is probably the most patient of all.

So while my grandma is going through this, my grandpa also has prostate cancer. Actually, he just got it removed today. But she’s very concerned about him, and her Altzheimers is really hindering her in asking for questions or being comfortable without him.

Their daily life consists mostly of my grandma making breakfast, and having to be reminded several times by my grandpa what he wants. And even if she gets it wrong, he will still eat it anyway, reassuring her it’s what he asked for.

But where they live isn’t ideal. It’s a 20 minute boat ride to land, followed by 20 more minutes to the nearest hospital. All of their kids are urging them to move off the island they live on and be closer to the rest of the family. Everyone wants them to go to a retirement community where they can be comfortable, around people, and where it’s easy for them to get to a hospital if need be.

Meanwhile, my mom is working with her siblings on what to do if inevitably my grandpa passes away and leaves behind my grandma. And while they keep planning for way in the future and aren’t doing anything presently, I continually urge her to get things down on paper and decided now before things get serious. She needs to communicate with all of her siblings to figure out what to do about my grandma if my grandpa passes away at any point. Otherwise later things could be really mixed up.

A part of me is glad I don’t have siblings. When it comes to these types of decisions in the future, I won’t have anyone to argue with except for mom’s fiance - if they ever get married - but I don’t have to figure it out between 5 siblings about what is best for her and where she should live, etc.

Hopefully they can figure things out.