Grampa McCain: You need your family's help

stevedeshazer

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Tue Apr-03-07 08:23 PM
Original message

Grampa McCain: You need your family's help

Edited on Tue Apr-03-07 08:51 PM by Steve_DeShazer

In my life, I've had the horrific experience of seeing both my grandfathers and my father slip into dementia. God help me; it's true. And it terrifies me every day of my life, for now I'm approaching the age of their steep decline.

Grampa Larson had a stroke at age 64. He carried on for a few more years and with many tears, paralyzed on his left side, unable to work and unable to realize his dreams. As a teenager, I helped care for him after school while Gramma L. worked a part-time job trying to make ends meet. Much to Grampa's humiliation, I had to clean his pants out from time to time. He never let go of his dream to take me fishing with him in Alaska

Grampa DeShazer plowed on as a dairy farmer and lived to be 86. But those last ten years were hell for us. He wandered around for many of those years looking for his border collie, but Tony had died long ago. He had sold his cows but still got up at 4 AM to milk them, nonexistent as they were. My uncle had sold the tractor and Gramma had died years ago. The confusion was evident, even as we grandchildren occasionally helped him out as the farmhouse and Grampa declined in cleanliness and hygiene.

Pop died just three years ago at 78. It's hard to write or talk about it, but his Alzheimer's and subsequent memory loss and decline were so hard on my mom, brother and I that we can barely even speak today. He was a combat engineer in WWII and I'm convinced he had post-traumatic stress disorder, something rarely if ever acknowledged among those of his generation. Toward the end of his life, I had to help a poor hospital intern drag him out from under his bed because he was convinced he was under attack from the Germans. I won't dwell on the details, I've said enough already, but anyone who has had a loved one with any form of dementia will know what I mean.

On to John McCain.

He is exhibiting similar delusional behavior. I'm not trying to be flippant here.

Like my Grampa L., he has a dream, in his case to be President of the United States. It is not realistic. His episode in Baghdad this weekend coupled with his statements declaring progress in Iraq simply don't make any sense. Wandering around a Baghdad market wearing a flak jacket accompanied by 100+ soldiers and assault helicopters and claiming that things are normal transcends politics. It is a very bad sign of his mental acuity. Something is very wrong.

You might just chalk it up to politics, and many will. But, what lucid person would run for President on a completely bat-shit crazy platform of escalating troop levels when the American public and every sane person who is not a Bush sycophant or a flat-out war monger knows that the policy is insane? Who would stage such a pathetic episode as that which occurred over the weekend?

Grampa McCain desperately needs help from his family, a helpful staffer, perhaps a fellow Senator or someone sane to sit him down and break it to him: He's losing it, and fast.

One of the worst things I ever had to do was to tell Pop that he couldn't drive anymore. He'd got himself lost and didn't know where the hell he was. We were afraid he would end up in some cornfield or back road in the dead of winter and not survive.

Now, it's spring. Someone needs to grab the keys of the Straight Talk Express and spell it out for Grampa. The man is a war hero, and as much as I despise his politics, I'd like to see him go out with a shred of dignity intact.

Grampa Larson never got to fish in Alaska, after all. Grampa McCain will never be President.

It's time to let go, Grampa.