Awkward Alzheimer

I've been meaning to get back to blogging for a while now but life has gotten real busy. In the last few months since my last post, I have:
- graduated
- got a "big girl, grown up" job
- stepped down from leadership
- figured out my faith a bit more
- been a bridesmaid at my brother's wedding
- found my calling
- grown up
- bought things because I need it for work.


I've also had the privilege of having my "Ah Ma" (paternal grandmother who lived in Perth) move in with us for awhile. My Ah Ma has Alzhemiers, she's had it for awhile now. My earliest memories of this saga are of a family meeting where she was beginning to realise that her memory wasn't quite up to scratch and I remember my biggest concern then at age 10 was that my Ah Ma would forget my name and who I was...12 years later, she doesn't know my name and that is okay. She recognises my face and she tells me she loves me and I think she means it. Sometimes she forgets I don't speak Hokkien but we have a giggle about it. Now that I'm 22 and have worked in the healthcare system, my biggest concern is her safety... and yet there's that niggling thought about her not knowing my name. Does she think she is sitting next to a stranger every time I sit next to her on the couch? Maybe the fact that I'm calling her Ah Ma alerts her to the fact that I am one of her granddaughters. One night I came home from work and walk past her room. She sees me and is genuinely excited and welcomes me thinking I've flown in from Melbourne to Perth. I'm grateful for these moments. 


For the longest time, I'd look at her sitting on the couch and wonder if I should just come out and say " Hi Ah Ma, I'm I-Shen", and yet I didn't. I find it so terribly awkward to have to reintroduce myself by my name to my grandma and it was such a struggle between wanting her to know that I wasn't a stranger so I didn't freak her out when I hugged her (not that I think she would, she'd willingly hug anyone) and getting over the awkwardness of it all. Then... it hit me. 


My Ah Ma was a Chinese School Teacher.. actually both my grannies are, but you'd never know cause I can barely write my own name in Chinese. I speak enough to continue a little conversation but not much else. But my Ah Ma doesn't remember this, so I've asked her to "teach" me Mandarin even though I know  the basics already. We begin by the general:


me:Ni hou ma?
     (How are you)


ah ma:Wo hen hou, ni ne?
           (I'm very good, how about you?)


me:Wo ye hen hou. Wo de ming she Lin Yi Sien. Ni jiao she mo ming je?
      (I'm also very good. My name is Lim I-Shen, what is your name)


ah ma: oh very good!  Wo de ming she Huang Pao Ying.
           My name is Ng Pao Ying


we've been having this same conversation regularly now. I'm glad I've found a way of getting past the awkwardness of having to outrightly tell her my name. Now I'll just have to think more laterally about getting her to stop washing the dishes repeatedly seeing as we are in a drought prone state.