Our best version of a good week. (Some moments didn’t make Facebook.)

I had a friend who sometimes commented on the “Instagram Life” so many portray on social media. You know: beautiful children, wonderful vacations, new cars, job promotions. Most of us try to display our best version of ourselves so we can feel good about others feeling good about us.

I wonder if that’s what I was doing with my Facebook posts last week. Our son and his son had come from New York to visit for five days, and I posted pictures, all full of smiles and hugs, to share highlights from each day.

The pictures weren’t a lie. The smiles were real. We enjoyed pleasant times beyond the few I photographed. I’m so glad the two guys came. We made memories to cherish, and we’ll be glad to look back on the pictures in coming years and remember what life was like for us this summer.

But we’ll remember more than the minutes captured in the snapshots.

We’ll remember Evelyn’s inconsolable anxiousness that came like clockwork every afternoon.
We’ll remember helping her cut her chicken or insisting that she not take her plate from the dining table to the living room halfway through most meals.
We’ll remember bringing her back and forth to the neighbor’s pool because she was too antsy to sit and watch our grandson swim, even for just the 45 minutes we were there on a cool, cloudy day.

My biggest concern

My biggest concern before they arrived was that the 6-year-old have positive memories with his grandma. I didn’t want her behavior to upset him in any way. I think we succeeded.

It’s one thing to be sad when a grandparent dies before the grandchild has a chance to know her. It’s even sadder when the child has plenty of memories, but they’re all negative. I talked about that with my therapist, and she suggested I plan some activities our grandson and my wife could do together.

I orchestrated a couple that were not failures.

He helped her put together a puzzle that was too easy for him but something of a challenge for her. She didn’t mind that he completed most of it himself.

He helped me put refrigerator cookie dough on the baking sheet. Once the cookies were baked, Grandma watched intently as he iced them, and she sprinkled a little sugar on a few herself.

He asked me to read a chapter in his book each bedtime, but the last night I handed the book to Evelyn. One thing she still does very well is read out loud!

His dad had done a good job preparing him for the visit, explaining that Grandma’s disease made her behavior unusual sometimes and it’s not her fault. In passing one day, I mentioned one of Evelyn’s quirks to the boy, and he said, “I know. Dad told me.” At the suggestion of my support group leader, I had found some books for children about Alzheimer’s disease and sent them to read before their visit. Maybe they helped.

Not every positive moment was planned. Grandma grabbed a towel and cuddled him in it when he left the pool shivering before we went home. “Oh, Grandma loves that boy,” I said.

“I do! I really love him,” she said. It was one of only several sentences she completed that day.

My greatest hope

A friend wrote me and mentioned she likes so much to see windows into Evelyn’s heart when she makes an occasional wry response to a question or conversation. I’ll always remember that spontaneous warm comment beside the pool last Thursday.

I hope our grandson will always remember that what she said was from her heart.