When Grandy Begins to Forget by David Waithera. (A dementia book for teens and young adults)

This book was born from experiences I never imagined would one day become a book. Circumstances forced me to spend much of my teenage years working among older people. At the time, those were some of the hardest years of my life. I was young, and while many teenagers were occupied with the ordinary experiences of growing up, life placed me in situations where I had to work. I cleared compounds, worked on farms, prepared firewood, carried heavy things, and helped older people with tasks they could no longer easily do for themselves. I thought I was simply trying to survive difficult circumstances. I did not realize that I was also watching, listening, learning, and gathering experiences that I would understand very differently many years later.

Among those older people, I witnessed behaviors I could not explain. Some forgot things. Some became confused. Some repeated themselves or behaved in ways that seemed strange to my teenage mind. In the community where I grew up, we did not talk much about dementia. We had our own explanations and expressions for what we saw. Like many young people, I could see the behavior, but I did not understand what might be happening behind it. Looking back now, I wish I had known then what I know today.

Life has an interesting way of bringing us back to lessons we did not understand the first time. More than two decades later, I found myself once again among older people, this time in a setting that cares for people living with dementia. Suddenly, some of the memories from my teenage years began to make sense. Through the people I have encountered in dementia care, I have learned to look beyond forgotten names, repeated questions, confusion, anger, wandering, and other changes. I have learned to ask not only, “What is this person doing?” but also, “What might this person be experiencing?”

Most importantly, I have learned to see the person before I see dementia. Behind the confused face is somebody’s mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, brother, sister, or friend. There is a person who once ran, dreamed, worked, loved, struggled, raised a family, laughed, cried, and built a lifetime of memories. Dementia may change what a person can remember or do, but it does not erase that person’s humanity, dignity, or need to belong. That conviction runs throughout this book.

In a strange way, therefore, this book is part of turning the lemons my teenage years gave me into lemonade. I cannot go back and change those difficult years. I cannot return to the older people I met and respond to them with the understanding I have today. But I can take what those years taught me, combine it with what I am learning now, and pass it on to another generation. As I wrote in this book, those older people probably never knew how much they were teaching me. At the time, I thought I was helping them. Years later, I realize they were also teaching me.

My hope is simple; that this book will help someone. I hope a teenager will read it and understand a grandmother, grandfather, neighbor, or older relative differently. I hope it replaces laughter with compassion, fear with understanding, impatience with kindness, and judgment with curiosity. And perhaps, when Grandy begins to forget, a young person somewhere will remember something even more important that Grandy is still Grandy.

The book is available on Amazon