Hiking for Nana

My grandmother never climbed a mountain, never stood atop a stony summit and looked out across a landscape of other peaks and hills and unending forests rolling away into the horizon, never felt the tired exhilaration that comes from standing on what feels like the top of the world.

Many years before she was "Nana."

Saturday, I will hike for my grandmother, Marjorie Marie (Thomas) Keegan, who died 24 years ago after a long decline into the fog of memory loss.

With a small group of friends, I will set out for the summit of Mount Eisenhower, one team in a larger effort to put hikers atop each of New Hampshire’s 48 4,000-foot peaks in a 48-hour period. The 48 Peaks event is an endeavor to raise awareness of Alzheimer’s Disease, garner funding for research and support, and pay tribute to the people affected by this disease.

My grandmother never climbed a mountain; in fact, we were told as children not to tell Nana how steep the trails were, how precipitous the drops to the side, when we went on our own expeditions. But she worked her way across many metaphorical mountains in her lifetime. She grew up in an inner-city tenement in Worcester, Mass., coming of age during the Great Depression, and determined to someday own her own house. She went to work as soon as she was old enough, despite her dreams of furthering her education, so that she could help her family. She lost the love of her life to World War II.

She persevered. She got married and waited tables at the local Howard Johnson’s and saved pennies until there were enough of them to build a house. She kept on working – as a school cafeteria aide, then a high school secretary – until my mother, her pride and joy and only child, graduated from college. Then Nana went to a community college and earned her own degree. Through continued frugality, she was able to travel – to Hawaii and Europe and other places she’d surely never dreamed of seeing as a little girl from the inner city.

The one mountain that proved insurmountable for my grandmother was Alzheimer’s Disease, which started creeping in when she was in her mid-60s and I was not yet a teenager. It started with small forgotten things that gradually became bigger forgotten things – missing a turn while driving a familiar route, calling my mom for their regular morning check-in during the middle of the night, leaving the gas stove on with nothing cooking.

She moved in with my family for a few years, then to a nursing home as Alzheimer’s continued its relentless attack. She forgot how to get dressed, how to clean herself, how to act at the dinner table. She forgot who we were, even my mother, calling her “the nice girl who came to visit” when Mom would sit with her at the nursing home.

Thirty years ago, people didn’t know as much about Alzheimer’s as they do now. My grandmother simply thought she was getting forgetful as she got older. Perhaps that was a blessing, that she didn’t know how much she would lose by the end: time with her grandchildren, her independence, a lifetime of memories.

Alzheimer’s Disease is ugly and painful and hard, probably most especially for the people who become caretakers – the sons and daughters and spouses. What my mother endured while caring for her own mother, watching as this bright, stubborn, strong woman faded into vast forgetfulness, I can’t fully understand.

For me, there is one painful memory that sticks: the day I visited the nursing home with a group from my high school and my grandmother didn’t know me, didn’t even respond to my greeting. I had known, I suppose, that this was coming, that the Nana who’d adored me forever would someday not know who I was. I just hadn’t known how shockingly painful it would be.

I was old enough when she started to fade that I have a collection of vague childhood memories of my grandmother. Christmas mornings when she’d delight in our happy excitement. Sleepovers at her house, where the stale smell of cigarettes permeated everything and she made us the best grilled ham-and-cheese sandwiches. Hot summer afternoons in the screen house in her backyard or on our own back deck. Watching the Lawrence Welk Show together.

She loved Lawrence Welk. She admired a man in uniform – and would have been proud to see one grandson grow up to wear the uniforms of an officer in both the California Highway Patrol and the U.S. Army Reserves and the other eventually find his way into a firefighter’s uniform. She cherished her family – from her beloved older brother and sister to the grandchildren she adored.

I know there are other hikers in the 48 Peaks effort who have similar stories of loved ones lost and memories faded, who will be carrying some person or remembrance with them as they climb. We hike to honor our loved ones and with the hope that this small effort will help prevent others from suffering through Alzheimer’s.

My grandmother never climbed a mountain, but I imagine she would have liked the view from the top, the wild winds there that feel like freedom, the satisfaction of reaching the summit. I will carry Nana with me Saturday, as I do always, holding tight to the memories of who she was before Alzheimer’s, buoyed by her love all these years after she left us.

To make a donation to the Alzheimer's Association, please visit my fundraising page.

Original content by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul, posted to her blog, Writings From a Full Life. This essay also appears as Meghan's Close to Home column in the June 9, 2017 issue of the Littleton Record.