I’ve had a rough couple of months because of something REALLY bad that happened back in the fall. At first I wasn’t sure how to talk about it online, or even if I wanted to reveal it because it involved my family. Fortunately, though, the problem’s cooled way down in the past month, and in thinking about what a crazy time it’s been, I decided I wanted to write about it frankly and honestly.
What happened is a long and complicated story, so please bear with me while I explain some intricate details, simplify others, and leave a handful of moments vague to protect some people’s anonymity.
In telling this story, though, I want to share that 1) Sometimes really bad things happen that make it incredibly difficult to do creative work, and 2) Dealing with those problems, and ultimately solving them, is a vital skill.
Here’s the story:
My Grandpa Has Dementia
My eighty-seven-year-old grandpa, who I lived with growing up (more on this later), who took care of us when my parents were working, who gave me one of the suits I wore at my first job in Japan, and who I shared a lot of good times with, has dementia.
Up until a few months ago, he was living with his longtime companion in the same small New Hampshire town as me, where my mother also lives, along with my aunt and uncle. My grandpa and his companion (i.e., a girlfriend he wasn’t married to) were both getting older—he’s well into his eighties, and she’d just turned ninety. Our family was concerned about them living by themselves, so my mom checked in on them with regular visits and a Meals on Wheels schedule since they couldn’t drive or get to a grocery store.
One day in July, my grandfather’s companion woke up in terrible pain and had to go to the emergency room. She ended up staying in a physical therapy center for nearly two months.
My mom, not wanting to leave my grandpa alone, moved into the house where he lived with his companion to keep an eye on him. While there, she noticed that he was forgetting things, and getting confused more often than before.
While she was staying with my grandfather, my mom decided to pull the trigger on fixing her kitchen floor, which she’d been meaning to do for some time. Since she wasn’t staying at home, she thought, why not get it done then?
The carpenters got to work, but the job turned out to be bigger than anyone thought because of a problem with the way the house was built. As a result, her floor project turned into a full-blown kitchen and bathroom renovation.
Meanwhile, my mom and her siblings were trying to figure out what was best for my grandfather, since he really needed some sort of care. None of them were in a position to bring him in to live with them, so they started looking into care homes.
Finally, in early September, my grandfather’s companion came home from the physical therapy center, but she needed 24-hour in-home care. However, her family was, in our opinion, doing a sub-par job of making this happen.
My mom needed to escape the situation, but since her house was still being worked on, she went to stay with me for a while with her dog. We figured the in-home care workers could also keep an eye on my grandpa (in case of emergencies, etc.), which they were easily willing to do.
Things seemed OK for a few weeks, until they weren’t. One day, the care workers called my mom to report an incident I won’t explain here, then asked that they move my grandpa somewhere else. (Remember: my grandfather and his companion never married, and he just lived at her house.)
That’s when they brought him to live at my place.
My Bachelor Pad Apartment Turned Into an Elderly Care Home
Now’s the part where I have to back up and explain my living situation since I moved into my new apartment last spring, and why moving my grandpa to my barely furnished bachelor pad was my family’s best option.
To start: my grandfather still owns the big, five-bedroom and two-living-room house he and my grandmother bought in 1989, the same house I grew up in from 1993 to 2004. Different family members lived there over the years, and when my family moved out, my aunt and uncle and their kids moved in with my grandpa.
Eventually, though, when my cousins got older and moved out, my aunt and uncle didn’t need that big old house anymore. By the late 2010s, my grandfather was also living with his companion, so most of the house wasn’t being used. Also, because of a pretty complicated family issue that I won’t describe here, my grandfather retained ownership of the house, even though he didn’t live there. For much of the last thirty years, my grandfather struggled with hanging on to things too long and not being able to make decisions, so not selling the house was just the easiest path to take.
Keeping a big, half-empty house wasn’t practical, though, and after much hullabaloo that I also won’t describe here, my family turned the old house into two apartments. My aunt and uncle lived downstairs, and after another complicated chain of events, in April 2023, I decided to move upstairs and pay rent. The housing market in New Hampshire is in rough shape right now, with sky-high rents and not a lot of places available, so my living here in what’s actually a pretty nice, spacious apartment was win-win for everyone.
Because I just moved back from Japan last year and was living with friends, though, I didn’t have a lot of furniture, and a lot of my stuff was still in storage. I also didn’t own things like bath mats, a can opener that wasn’t part of a Swiss army knife, a way to watch TV without using a laptop, or actual living room furniture. I had the basics to furnish the place, but my guest room was full of unpacked boxes, and all I really had to sit on in the living room were barstool chairs and the same collapsible futon I slept on during grad school.
Still, bringing my grandfather to my place made the most sense: my mom’s house was still being worked on, there was technically a lot of room here even if there wasn’t a lot of furniture, and it was close to my mom’s work so she could take care of him easily. Also, my grandpa still technically owned the house, so how could we possibly turn him away?
How I Reacted When My Grandpa Moved In
When my mom called me suddenly at 5pm on a Friday to tell me the news, I knew bringing my grandpa to my apartment was our only option. I also knew I had to get away from the situation: I had a LOT of work I had to do, and having my grandpa, my mom, and her dog living here was going to be too hard emotionally. My work requires a lot of solitude, concentration, and a set routine, and I knew that with my apartment suddenly full, I wouldn’t be able to get it done. My mom also made it clear that they didn’t need my help taking care of my grandpa (at least at first), just a place for him to stay.
To get the space I needed away from this insane situation, I spent the next three weeks staying with friends and family: first with my best friend, then at my dad’s place, then with one of my other aunts. All of them were very accommodating and understood exactly what I was going through, and had houses that were quiet during the day where I could do my work. I also slept (slightly) more easily away from the situation, though I still felt an incredibly amount of stress after effectively losing my place to live.
Work-wise I was barely hanging on: I was pushing back client deadlines, working late, and barely writing. I burned through a lot of time and gas driving across the state, especially when I needed to come back to town for an in-person meeting or teach my Japanese lesson. I had a lot of trouble concentrating, and felt anxious and angry.
It was also hard to explain the problem to people because it was so insanely complicated. People kept asking questions like:
“Why does your grandfather have to stay at your place?”
“Why can’t [insert family member] just take care of him?”
“Why can’t he stay where he was living before?”
and worst of all:
“Didn’t your family have a plan for this?”
This last question was the hardest because it made me think about my grandfather’s behavior over the last thirty years, how he never threw anything away, couldn’t make decisions, never talked about the future, and constantly diverted serious talk with a joke. Though my mom and others sometimes took charge, it wasn’t easy for my family to just overrule my grandpa and make decisions for him, especially when we were all off living our own lives and had our own problems. A few of us (especially my mom) did a lot to make the situation better these past few years, but my mom was mostly working alone, and we needed more time to get my grandfather’s affairs in order.
In short, everything just happened before we were ready.
When Things Got Really Rough, I Stepped Up to Help
I stayed away from my apartment for three weeks, dropping by only occasionally to pick up mail and things I needed, and living out of a suitcase while I moved around.
During my brief visits, though, I noticed that things weren’t going that well. For one, my grandpa slept in my bed, but my mom was sleeping on a cot in the guest room that was still full of unpacked boxes, so I spent an afternoon moving things into storage to clear more room for her. My living room still only had a stiff futon and barstools in it, so I picked up on old reclining chair from my dad and brought it over for my grandpa to sit in. Some days I’d come back to find the trash had piled up, so I’d bring it to the dump, then pick up food if the refrigerator was empty.
Taking care of my grandpa all day was also incredibly stressful for everyone. He was still physically healthy and didn’t need help in the bathroom or anything—he just couldn’t keep himself occupied, and would ask questions or get nervous. He knew all of our faces, but would get confused about where he was, or how much time had passed. He felt better when people were talking to him, or when he had something to do, like a puzzle or a game or a cleaning task. So, whoever was with him had to be constantly thinking up activities and conversation, which none of us had any experience with.
Eventually I realized that even though my mom and aunts were able to basically take care of my grandpa, they were just barely hanging on, and needed an extra pair of hands.
Deciding to move back was really hard: I still felt really frustrated, and we still didn’t know how long it would be before my grandpa could go to a memory care center. But I’d gotten over the worst of the shock, and I wanted to do the right thing for my family, who were clearly struggling.
Because we got incredibly lucky when a spot in the memory care center opened up, I only needed to tough out the situation for two weeks (though it felt like much longer). I bought an air mattress and installed light block curtains so I could sleep in my office, and would sneak into my bedroom to get clean clothes when my grandpa wasn’t there. I mostly worked with the door open so I could hear if someone needed something, and sometimes my grandpa would wander in and ask me what he was doing there, and what was going on. I also did a lot of cleaning, took out more trash, did some cooking, and finally got around to painting and setting up the mudroom so people would have a place to put their shoes and jackets.
The hardest part about being there was seeing my grandpa get confused or angry when he couldn’t find something he thought he’d lost. One night when I was sleeping he came into my room at three a.m. because he thought he was staying in a hotel and was confused about which room was his. Another night he came in after midnight and turned on the light anxiously looking for his keys. Most nights, though, we’d just hear him walking around his (which was really my) bedroom, moving things around and turning the light on and off. In the morning I’d often find that he’d taken my books or clothes and put them somewhere else, or that he was secretly saving plastic containers and bread bags.
The absolute worst, though, came during the very last weekend, when my mom got COVID and was laid up in bed. I had a big editing deadline I absolutely had to finish, but because no one else wanted to get COVID, the most my other family could do was drop some groceries off outside. That left me to prep all the meals, take care of my mom, and keep my grandpa occupied and answer his questions, all while finishing my big deadline.
I tried the absolute best I could, but it was really, really tough. I was counting down the days until my grandpa could go to the memory care center, but I just couldn’t handle everything by myself. Everyone else was tired and busy too, but that weekend, it felt like everything came to a head.
Why, I wondered, did this all have to happen to us? And more specifically, to me?
When it was finally all over, even though my grandpa was gone, I couldn’t sleep well or focus on much of anything, and felt physically sick for the next two weeks.
What Happened After
My family had a lot of help from medical and care professionals during this difficult time, and my grandpa was finally able to move into the memory care center at the end of October. My mom’s kitchen and bathroom still weren’t finished, so she stayed at my place for another few weeks with her dog and finally went home earlier this month.
After having my entire life thrown off course for six weeks, I needed time to calm down, catch up on my work, and reorganize my space. I’m still having trouble sleeping and focusing, but it’s getting better, and the worst of it is long over. My entire family also rests easier now that my grandpa’s in good hands, and the care house my mom found him is really nice, with plenty of activities and friendly staff that my grandpa likes to joke with.
I know I could have helped out more (especially by having the apartment more set up before my grandpa moved in), but I feel really good knowing that I did the right thing by helping my family in a time of crisis. Things would have been a lot worse if I hadn’t stepped in when I did, and I think a lot about how I want to organize my life so I can use my time and energy to make things better, especially for the people I care about who need help, like my grandpa and my mom.
Still, things would have gone even more smoothly if more family members had stepped up to help, even a little. When you’re in the middle of a crisis, it can be hard to find the time to reach out, or to know what to ask for, so I wish more people had offered help, even if it was just to bring over food or groceries so we wouldn’t have to cook or go to the store.
I also want to extend a heartfelt thanks to everyone who did help: to all my family members who made taking care of my grandpa a priority, my friends and family who let me stay with them when I needed space, my clients and writing colleagues who understood when I needed more time to get my work done, everyone who dropped off food or meals or did little favors, the care center staff and medical personnel, the friend who took care of my grandpa’s truck, my mom’s bosses who graciously let her take time off, and everyone else who helped out instead of finding reasons not to or pretending that everything was fine.
This story also has a handful of villains in it I haven’t mentioned here, people outside my family who actively made things worse through their own selfishness, who caused a lot of grief and a made a lot more work for a lot of people. I won’t dwell on what they did here, but going through all of this reminded me that it takes a certain kind of heartlessness to either turn a blind eye or actively impose hardships on a family who’s clearly struggling.
Final Thoughts
I haven’t gotten much writing done at all since September, and this crisis has caused me to fall behind on a lot of things. Helping out, though, was really important to me, and I know I made the right decision.
Now that things are more where they need to be, though, I’ve got to continue the long process of cleaning up the mess and getting my creative work in a better place. Carcrash Parker and the Haven of Larpers still needs some final revising, and I’ve got a new novel I want to start (!!!) and a ton of other things on my To-Do list. The next couple of months are going to be rough, but I know I can do it.
My biggest takeaway, though, is that sometimes, going through a crisis shows you what you’re really capable of.