Over the River and Through the Woods to Grandma's Lost World We Go

I haven't seen my grandmother in two years. But she hasn't seen me for even longer.

My mother's mother will be 92 in August. She's relatively healthy, and despite the occasional setback, she could easily live for years and years. Also, her mind is completely lost to Alzheimer's disease.

Every few weeks, my mother visits her at her nursing home on Long Island. To reach her room, she walks through hallways where moans and yelps echo from slack mouths. Men and women stare from their beds and wheelchairs into space or the space that exists between their vacant eyes and a TV screen. An alarm device clips to their gowns and the bed boards or chairs so someone can come to prop them up if they slump forward.

My mom always brings a comb and scissors to trim Grandma's white hair. She powders her nose, tweezes her chin and blushes her cheeks. For a little while she looks a little more presentable.

But her eyes betray no fleeting thoughts of recognition. Her two daughters and four grandchildren register as little more than just some people — or maybe just colorful shapes and blurs that make noises.

My grandma from Queens made matzoh ball soup, rooted for the Mets and always made a fuss when my brother jokingly patted her perfectly coiffed hair. Now, she is fed, she is bathed, and she babbles. Her incoherent mumbling once included an occasional recognizable name or place or word. The last time I saw her, she spoke in spurts of half-words. Fractional thoughts that sounded alien, like those blurted by my 1-year-old niece. But instead of curiosity, they meander with a detached confusion.

I should visit her. I'm sure I will. Soon. I'm sure.

But though Eleanor Siegel lives, the woman I knew as my grandmother is long gone. I don't remember the last actual conversation we had — maybe six years ago. I know this is a sin.

Over the weekend, my girlfriend and I watched some old 8mm home movies that were transfered to video tape. In 1974, Eleanor doted over her newest grandchild, some puffy lump they called Ricky.

The video place had added Muzak versions of nostalgic standards, the kind of songs that sound like a Casio keyboard wrapped in a damp towel playing from the speaker inside an elevator stuck between 1961 and 1962. The random songs didn't always match the action on screen. "Strangers in the Night" or "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" might play over a birthday party or a trip to the zoo. I thought of my grandmother.

As video Ricky grew up and his parents insisted he be called Rick, I couldn't imagine what he imagined. I couldn't peer inside his developing head and remember what I had once remembered.

And I thought of Grandma Eleanor. Standing around in her green and white outfit, applauding Rick's clumsy steps or laughing as Grandpa Jack twirled inside a hula hoop. Where has she gone? What is left? Is it better to continue living while your memory, personality and ability to function slowly vanish or to retain complete mental acuity as your body slowly betrays you, breaking down until the end?

Of course, we can make no such choice.

Two of my grandparents died after strokes and heart attacks. Grandpa Jack shrunk, yellow and gray, as cancer dripped him dry.

My other grandma lives in a Long Island room, clutching a doll and surrounded by pictures of strangers. My mother wants me to see her this summer. She wants her to meet my girlfriend.

I wish she could.