On a summer day in the Fort Greene projects section of Brooklyn where I’m from, I was sitting with a friend in my mother’s home talking about school shopping. I already had things, but I wanted some more clothes since this was my first year of high school that fall. So I called my grandmother, who I know gives me everything, to ask her for 500 dollars to shop. She told me she’d give it to me on one condition. I had to look after my great grandmother, who had recently moved in with my grandmother. I agreed to it. I mean for me it was a win/win to get some money just for babysitting. Boy, down the line I was in for a surprise.

From the age of 15–21, I looked after my great grandmother. What started out as me trying to get some extra money for some school clothes would become a life changing experience or at least would show a young boy the true meaning of life and the bond that was formed from an unusual circumstance.

I’m going to give you a little history about where this all took place. My grandmother lives in the Van Dyke Apartments in Brownsville. As you walk up to this huge building you see reddish, brownish bricks. On the side of the building you see a parking lot and to your left you see a red sign that says, “Welcome to New York City Housing Authority Brownsville.” You then walk up to these big silver doors, and once you enter you see big red elevators that take you from the first to the thirteenth floor. Once you enter you are usually hit with the smell of urine, just like hot garbage on a summer day. When you get to the seventh floor, which is the floor that my grandma stays on, there’s a long hallway, sometimes creepy with flickering lights, and silent at times. Other times there’s a lot of noise and it’s full of drama.

Once you get to my grandmother’s door, you enter and hear the bell chimes on the door. Then you look to the right and you see paper towels, Ensures, adult diapers and juices, all stacked from the bottom of the floor to the top of the ceiling. These are things my great grandmother needed. When you would go further in you would see three couches, a fish tank, a huge flat screen TV, a kitchen table, and plants everywhere, and that was just the beginning. You look all around the living room and see two degrees from New York City College of Technology–one for my great grandmother and one for my grandmother. (They both graduated from there, along with my mom.) You would also feel like you were in a Betty Boop convention. I mean from dolls, statues, candles, clothing and even computer covers. Besides the fact that Ms. Boop was everywhere, there was also a Disney world feel to it. There were little knick-knacks all over the place of Disney characters–Bugs Bunny, Daffy, Popeye, Porky the Pig, Pluto, Snoopy, Lola, Garfield and more childlike things that filled the room with color and life.

Even though the apartment was full of life, there also was a feeling of this kind of happy/sadness. It came from knowing that my great grandmother was by the grace of God still here but also knowing that she had been diagnosed with dementia. According to the dictionary, dementia is a “chronic or persistent disorder of the mental processes caused by brain disease or injury and marked by memory disorders.”

The day comes for me to look after my great grandmother, and I wasn’t nervous at all. I mean this is my family, so taking care of her should be no biggie. But when my grandmother started telling me about some of the things to look out for, my nerves started kicking in, and boy I can feel me sweating. She told me, “Monkey, you must pay attention. Make sure if she gets up from her bed, she doesn’t hurt herself and check on her throughout the night.”

“Monkey” is the nickname my grandmother and I have for each other after an asthma attack almost killed me as a kid and left me very skinny. At the time I was walking like a little monkey, she says. Lol.

“Monkey,” I ask, “what if she gets up and has to use the bathroom?” My grandmother replies that she shouldn’t need to since she used the bathroom before she went to bed. Then I ask the question I should’ve asked from the beginning, “Monkey what does MAMA (Great grandmother’s nick name) have?”

“Dementia,” she says. “This makes her go back into a childlike state of mind.” I just stared at her and didn’t really understand.

That first night was fine; she slept through the night and I felt good being there knowing she was OK and safe. After that my grandmother would ask me to watch her more and more, if she had an event to go to or just needed someone she trusted. No problem for me I say because for the couple of times I looked over my great grandmother there weren’t any problems. I remember on a certain night it was raining and I was watching TV. As she slept and after her home attendant left, now this is where the bonding started.

We would put newspaper on the floor, so if she got up from her bed, we could hear her through the night. This particular night she got up and I’m thinking it was just that. I remember my grandmother saying, “If she gets up, just put her back to bed. She does it all the time and will go back to sleep.”

Well I looked back there to see what was happening. OMG is all I could say. There was SHIT everywhere!!!!! I mean on the floors, walls, her bed, and all over her night gown. First thing that came to mind was—what am I going to do?

I ran to my cell phone and was about to call my grandma. Then something or some voice came over me and I heard like God himself say, “She cleaned your crap when you were a child; now it’s time for you to pay back your dues.”

So I got the gloves and told her it was going to be OK as I cleaned everything off the floor and walls and I changed her sheets and got her another gown. I took a deep breath and went to the bathroom. I had placed her on the toilet to clean up the mess. I turned on the shower and placed her in it and sat her on the handicap stool which had four steel legs and a gray set with back support, so she wouldn’t fall over. She sat down and I started washing her off; I did not look at her with anger or embarrassment. In my mind at the moment she was just like a baby that just made a mistake and you just have to smile and say it’s OK.

After I got her dried up dressed in clean clothes, I put on her baby powder and her Victoria secret (Love Spell) fragrance. “I smell good,” she said and we both chuckled. I laid her down in her bed and sat in the corner in the big green chair in her room until she fell asleep. That night this was my biggest responsibility yet, and I didn’t need any help with her.

My grandmother returned and I told her what had happened while she was gone. She got really silent and tears filled her eyes. “Monks, I thank you so much. You’re a blessing and I now know you can handle her.” A warm feeling came over me as I hugged my grandmother and smiled.

I saw my great grandmother way more after that, I would say close to every two weeks. Now I’m talking to her way more and showing her pictures. She would remember some things, but mostly she would ramble and just go back to her childhood. Great grandmother comes from Galveston, Texas, and is from a large family–eleven brothers, two of whom were stillborn, and one sister. She would say things like, “Tell Frankie I said to go get the ball.” Frankie is one of her twelve siblings, the only one who is still alive.

We would spend a whole lot of time looking at pictures that would trigger memories, like the picture of uncle Frank when he was a young boy in the army. I can see the USA flag in the background and a muscular man in a black uniform with patches over it. She just came out of nowhere and said, “Frankie’s coming home for a visit.”

“Oh he is,” I would say. “Are you happy?”

“Oh yeah,” she said and laid back in her chair. Just like that her mind went somewhere else.

It was amazing to me how her brain worked. One minute she can tell you a whole story, and then it’s like a light switch goes off, and she’s back in the past saying she must go pick up her children from school, who are in their 50s by now. (One daughter has even passed away.) But for the most part she remembers. At first it would get me a little upset, but after a while I learned dementia is not curable, so I must take my time with her and get used to it. Then I learned to follow her lead and either piggy back off what she was talking about or ask her certain questions that wouldn’t over work her mind.

I learned all about her food and medicines. One time just by paying attention to the label and color of the pills I even stopped the home attendant from giving her the wrong medicine that the pharmacy had given her by mistake. I yell, “Nooooooooooooooooo, do those look like the same pills she takes every day?” The home attendant looks at me like I had a bug on my face. “The pills she takes are all white,” I say. “Do those look all white?”

“OMG,” she replies. “I didn’t even see that.”

I shake my head and call my grandmother to tell her the situation. She reassures me she’ll get to the bottom of it. I say to myself Thank God I was here.

Our bond got so close that I would go to my grandmother’s house just to see her. I would even make up excuses to my friends to hang out with her. I was excited to learn more about her and some of her great old times in Texas. It was like I was back in the 1930s and could see their house and smell the fresh chocolate cookies her mom would make. I could also see her pain when she talked about the flood that washed away our family’s first home, which we still have because her father rebuilt it. But we lost a lot of family too.

THE GREAT GALVESTON HURRICANES. I didn’t know anything about that, so I googled it. From what I read and heard, here is what I learned: On September 8th, 1900, a category 4 hurricane tore through Galveston, killing 6,000 to 8,000 people but actually it ended up being more like 10,000 to 12,000. With the population being 37,789 at the time. A 15-foot storm surge flooded the city, which was then situated at less than 9 feet above sea level, and numerous homes and buildings were destroyed. They tried to place the bodies in the sea but they just washed back ashore. The next best thing to do was burn the bodies, So a lot of liquor was passed out to the rest of the community so that they would be able to handle the burning of all those bodies.

I could feel the pain in her story like I was there myself and could feel a chill come over my body. But I loved her stories and time together. Our bond got stronger, and my grandmother would call me and say, “The home attendant said she is looking for you.” My great grandmother would call me “the boy” because she couldn’t remember my name. I thought that I couldn’t cure her, but as long as she remembers something about me, I did my job and I knew I made some type of connection.

Over the course of our time together, I started to notice changes in her body, her speech, her eating and just her everyday habits. I could see she wasn’t swallowing her food anymore and that her weight had gone down. She couldn’t really talk anymore, and she used to get up and walk around a lot, but now she was more wheel chair bound. It was like she was a whole other person now. I mean between the disease and her medicine she was zombie like and made me think how fast things can change in life. The power of GOD and faith made me see Time and disease wait for no one. I had to prepare myself for the worst, but in my heart, I could smile knowing that I got to know and understand her. I lived for every minute of it and would do it again.

We shared a bond till she passed in 2016. Even after her death I learned that she taught me way more than I could imagine, such as patience. I remember before I would see younger people walk through the door before an elderly person and not even hold the door. I would see them on the bus and not even get up and just curse and be flat out disrespectful. Now I hold the doors for my elders, whether they’re taking their time or just walking slow. I learned that you can live fast and die young or you can live at the pace you’re supposed to and live a full long life.

I learned to have great respect for home attendants because they take care of other people’s family members. They put up with a lot of feisty attitudes and misunderstood people. And I see that elderly and younger people have a lot in common, such as we all want to live a certain dream.

I also do see that society has a long way to go since we see more and more cases of people with dementia or mental illness. We may never know what will happen to us, but I know that the bond you build with family is priceless, a spirit like a song that touches you. I see now that life doesn’t owe you anything or doesn’t care how cute you are or smart. But what you put out you will get back. I learned that you must respect all your elders. I mean they have knowledge and can help you understand the world better.