My grandmother was a great cook. Ever since I was an infant we would go to her house for huge Thanksgiving feasts. My entire family would be there: aunts, uncles and cousins, all awaiting dinner eagerly. The adults would sit around the table sipping wine and entertaining themselves with good conversation. The children, running through rooms and under furniture, would play with her kittens and stuffed animals. The wonderful and tantalizing aromas of my grandmother's feast would drift throughout the house and lure me and my other relatives into the kitchen where we anxiously asked questions about when we would be able to eat the wonderful food she was teasing us with. I would have been irritated with such constant questions, but my grandmother was forever smiling and laughing. I can hear her laugh in my head; I can hear the exact same beautiful, boisterous and extremely happy laugh as I used to hear those Thanksgivings.

* * * *

People would say my grandmother looked like Jackie Kennedy. I look at older pictures of her and I too can see the resemblance. She owned a boarding house in Anchorage and so there were always people coming and going. Her boarders, who were also very fond of her, nicknamed her 'Evil Evelyn.' I used to go to my grandmother's house every day after school. I would sit on her porch swing and drink juice, or I would help her in her rooftop greenhouses. She would hold my hand as I ascended the long, steep staircase leading to the roof. I can remember the way the air felt, heavy with the sweet smell of fresh flowers and vegetables. Her greenhouses were filled with the brilliant colors of assorted plants. My brother and I would run around the greenhouses shrieking at the top of our lungs, but my grandmother never scolded us.

I can identify the exact moment when my grandmother began to forget things. I was probably 7 or 8. I was lying in my bed, and my mother came and lay down next to me. She asked me if I would copy down important events from our calendar and put them on a new one for my grandmother. My mother told me that my grandmother was just having trouble remembering dates, and she didn't want her mother to be embarrassed if she forgot one of our birthdays. We both attributed this mild forgetfulness to old age and thought nothing of it, so I spent the entire morning methodically copying dates from one calendar to another. I didn't mind; I loved to do things to help my grandmother.

When I was 10 years old, my mother informed me that my grandmother was getting worse. She said grandmother's blood pressure medicine might be having detrimental effects on her memory. She said grandmother might have to move in with us. Again I didn't mind. In fact, I was so eager to have my grandmother live with us that I offered to give up my room and sleep on the floor in my parents' room. My grandmother never ended up living with us. As her memory got progressively worse, we found that it had not been her medicine causing it. Instead there was a name for the thing that was afflicting her memory: Alzheimers.

We eventually had to move my grandmother from her boarding house to Horizon House and then to the Pioneers' Home. The day we cleaned out her home was a painful one. We sorted through her things and rolled up her carpets, carefully selecting what precious items would go with her to Horizon House. It was not a task that we took lightly. I cried when my brother descended the roof steps and sadly informed us that the weight of the snow had crushed her greenhouses.

Over the years, her memory was not all that had been affected. During the last two years she had lost her motor control; she couldn't walk, talk or feed herself. Eventually my grandmother forgot who I was and didn't recognize my mother. My mother went to visit her every week, and I went much more rarely than I should have. The visit I remember most clearly was about a year ago. I had gone with my mother after seeing a movie. Upon entering the Pioneers' Home we passed a limbless man; and I will never forget the expression of happiness on his face. Inspirational, uplifting music was playing in the background as we walked by many other elderly people in wheelchairs. We walked up to my grandmother. Her head was down as my mother struggled to get her attention.

My mother said, 'Hi Mom.'

As if on cue I said, 'Hi Gram.'

My grandmother didn't look at me.

My mother said, 'Magdi, bend down and get into her line of vision.'

I bent my knees and tried to look into my grandmother's eyes. She still didn't look at me.

'Magdi bend down farther; she can't see you.'

I bent my knees a little more.

'You're going have to get down lower than that.'

I started to cry. I felt terrible, because here I was standing in the middle of a crowded but quiet room, crying. Finally, through my tears, I tried to make eye contact with my grandmother. She looked right through me.

This summer my mother and I took my grandmother to a park while we ate lunch. She still did not look at me. So I sat there while nibbling on a piece of bread and silently watched my grandmother. I needed some kind of contact with her, if not eye contact than physical contact. So I reached out and held her hand. I sat there for maybe half an hour just holding her hand, and the amazing thing was she held my hand back. She didn't just hold it limply, she actually squeezed it. She smiled that beautiful smile, which was exactly the same as it had been years before. I started to cry, but this time it was not from despair.

'Your grandmother is in her last hours,' my father said as he picked up my brother and me from school.

We drove to the Pioneers' Home and parked our car. I slowly stepped out. My feet sunk into the snow, and it chilled my ankles. I walked quickly behind my brother and father. The wind whipped against me, and light snowflakes melted against my face and neck. As I trudged through the snow with my head down, I bit my lip, closed my eyes and desperately tried to be strong. My brother opened the swinging doors, and the bleak interior of the Pioneers' Home greeted us. We started down a dull, yellowish hallway. I could hear the 'Macarena' playing, and the cheerful music rang through my ears as I silently prepared myself. My father opened the door to a staircase, and we started up. We reached a door at the top of the staircase on which hung a blue laminated sign that read: QUIET ZONE.

We walked down another hallway until my dad stopped in front of a door. The thing that caught my attention before entering was a picture of my grandmother hanging to the left of the door. There was her characteristic beautiful smile.

We stepped into the room and saw my mother, aunt and uncle standing over a bed. There lay my grandmother. She lay there in a hospital gown with her eyes closed. She was half covered with a blanket, and I could see her twitching beneath it. Her white hair fanned out against her pillow. My brother and I stepped over various cords to the left side of the bed. He rested his hand on my head in a comforting motion, and then stroked my grandmother's arm. I held her hand, and my eyes began to water. I tipped my head back so that my unshed tears would roll back into my head.

My aunt looked at me and said, 'She has a fever of 107.'

My mother looked at her mother and said, 'We have been talking about how often this happens, all the time. It is just another part of living.'

I tried so hard not to cry. I was here to comfort my mother, and crying wouldn't console her, but my tears came anyway as I stood there holding my grandmother's hand and looking at her beautiful face.