A friend of mine received word this week of her mother's diagnosed Dementia. Coincidently, if you believe in coincidences, I watched "The Notebook" this week. I highly recommend the film and it brought to my mind one of those magical days in my life.

   When Patricia and I discussed marriage and where we would live I was emphatic about returning to New Mexico. My maternal Grandmother's own Dementia surfaced during my enlistment and I wished to return to New Mexico to spend time with her and my grandfather.

   I was the seventh grandchild of thirteen but close to my grandfather and grandmother. I was the first grandchild to graduate from college and with my brother Seth, the only service members.

   Serving at  Ft. Bragg, and only returning home to New Mexico on leave, the changes in my Grandmother appeared drastic. By late 1985 she had no idea of the identity of any family member.

   I returned home in August of 1986 and my Grandfather passed away in December. A heavy smoker of unfiltered Pallmalls his heath finally collapsed by assuming the burden of complete care for my Grandmother. Simply, he would not let anyone help with her.

   The family had no choice but to put my Grandmother into a nursing home where I visited her once a week. 

   It is difficult to communicate the pain of those visits. To see this strong woman of character and morals, who placed family above all, reduced to this opened wounds every time I saw her. She simply did not know who she or anyone else was.

   And then we had the magical day. During a visit she remembered me, the family, and even Patricia who was not with me at the time and had met Grandmother only after the onset of her illness.

   We talked and talked, I caught her up on my life and hoped that she did not ask about Grandpa, which she did not. She tired and I left.

   I talked to my father the next morning and told him about the magical day.
 
   Then God provided the second half of the miracle -- my father told me that my Grandmother had passed away. He had assumed my mother had told me.

   If I had known about her passing, I would have seen the day with some bitterness, a cry that how this could happen? She was getting better!!

   By not knowing I had communicated this special day to my family free of the knowledge, free to see the miracle as it was............