Paranoid  

There's an old story about my great-grandmother and her descent into senile dementia. Apparently, she arrived home one day from a trip to the grocery store to find she'd been robbed. The thieves had taken some rather unusual objects--things like her potholders--but had left behind the wad of cash she'd left unattended on the counter. Undeterred, my great-grandmother continued going about her daily tasks; but every time she left her apartment from then on, she always left this note on the door:

Dear Robbers,
Go away. You've already taken everything.
~Julie
Of course, there were never any thieves. Those "robbers" were just my great-grandmother's forgetfulness. My mom later found the "stolen" potholders, but their disappearance was really just a tangible sign to everyone who knew her that my great-grandmother was losing her grasp on reality.

Over the past year or so, my mother has told me stories about my own grandmother's descent into an elderly haze. But while there's been a lot to be concerned about, I held out hope; I'd yet to hear a story that reminded me so gravely of the dementia that ripped my great-grandmother out of this world and into her own paranoid universe, rendering her mental capacity shot long before her physical body gave way.

That is, until last weekend...

That's when my grandmother--now 84-year-old, the same age at which her own mother passed away--received a phone call. It was from her bank, the same regional (please note the emphasis on that word, it's key to the story) institution with which she's conducted business for the past 50-odd years. My grandmother noticed the area code on the caller ID--it wasn't from her immediate area (of course not--it's a regional bank; it's headquarters and most of its call centers are located two states away). Immediately on edge, my grandmother (so she told my mother) cursed at the innocent operator on the other end of the line (who, no doubt, was probably just making a courtesy call or trying to sell her identity theft protection). She then slammed down the receiver, got behind the wheel of her Camry, and sped like wildfire to her local bank branch. That's where she canceled the account and withdrew all her money, taking it home in plastic bags.

Insert loud, audible sigh here.

This is what I--and I suspect, just about everyone else in my family--had both anticipated and feared. I think we were all waiting for my grandmother to do something so off-kilter that it reminded us of her mother.

She does not feel safe, even in the very insular world she's built for herself since my grandfather's death more than 16 years ago. She fears everything--the known, the unknown, the seen, the unseen. She trusts no one--not even her own daughters. This weekend's incident pointedly laid out--for all of us to see, unable to avoid--how paranoid my grandmother has become.

I find myself on edge. I'm waiting for a phone call from my mother that will bring the news I can't really digest right now. I know it's coming. It may not be next month or even next year, but this is the final act. My grandmother's "performance" this weekend signaled (in the famous words of Winston Churchill), if not the end, or even the beginning of the end, but at the very least "the end of the beginning."

My grandmother--as I knew her--is gone.

And now it is I who is paranoid.