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Nathalie Carraway
Ms. Gardner
English 10, Period 1
21 January 2013
Wandering Through a Labyrinth
Ball, flag, tree. Ball, flag, tree. Ball, flag, tree. It seemed easy enough to keep track of
three simple words. Yet, for her, it seemed a struggle to retrieve the words from her short-term
memory. My grandma, sat at the dining room table, focusing, trying to remember the words so
she could recite them at her check-up that afternoon. The smell of her traditional yellow cake
with chocolate frosting taunted me on the counter, which she had made earlier, with a bit more
assistance from Papa than he had given in the past. I sat with her, thinking that I, as an 8 year-old
could so easily remember the three words, and I wondered why grandma could not seem to find
the words in her memory. Tapping at the wooden table in frustration, Grandma Rose kept
echoing the monosyllabic words.
I later understood that my grandma was diagnosed with the early stages of Alzheimers
Disease:
Alzheimer's disease or Alzheimer's-type dementia is a progressive degeneration of brain
tissue that primarily strikes people over age 65. It is the most common cause of dementia
and is marked by a devastating mental decline. Intellectual functions such as memory,
comprehension, and speech deteriorate.
However, it was just explained to me as a disease that started to affect ones memory. I
began to picture the brain as a maze, with words, numbers and pictures floating around through
the narrow corridors; one area was sectioned off as a special labyrinth for memories, from your


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past to the present. At her doctors appointment that day, those elementary words slipped her
mind. Maybe she was just getting a little lost in her maze.
One night, she did get lost. My papa found her wandering through the neighborhood one
night after one of their neighbors, John, saw her walk outside. This was the first time she had
ever even shown the threat of forgetting major things, such as where she lived. And I imagined
her drifting farther from her memories within her brain, delving deeper into her personal
labyrinth. Grandma started to go through many changes in her personality, in one moment she
would randomly burst into tears, the next, she would declare some amazing sentiment that had
been true for many years. One morning, my Papa entered his bathroom to find a note that
Grandma had written and signed. I promise to you that I will wake up every day at 6 am with a
smile on my face and a song in my heart. When telling us about the note, my papa referred to
Grandma as my sweetheart, as he has since they first met.
While she often showed the sweet, compassionate side that I had always known of her,
she began to frequently snap at her family and friends, calling them bad words out of nowhere.
Often the only things that could calm her down appeared to be the soothing voices of Neil
Diamond in Sweet Caroline and Elvis Presley in Cant Help Falling in Love. Despite the
inappropriateness of her words, we decided to laugh it off, thinking that she could have possibly
been drawn to a new place in her brain which she had never visited before.
As her disease progressed, my mother and my papa asked me to keep an eye on
Grandma, to make sure she did not do anything dangerous while they had their backs turned. I
could not imagine how this incredible influence on my life such as her, needed me to look out for
her when I still struggled to care for myself. As her mental state slowly began to deteriorate, she
lost the capability to complete simple tasks that she had been doing her entire life. She no longer


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could make the best apricot jam in the entire world, she would not come pick strawberries in the
backyard with me, and she didnt finish the gorgeous quilts she had been creating for years.
I often take out the embroidered quilt that she had made for my mother years ago. Made
up of dozens of patches, each patch holding a new pattern, each pattern held together by a
multitude of strings. The strings flowed through the fabric, weaving in and out, life little threads
of time, carrying small bits of memories. Each thread making up a specific memory, each patch a
person, a place, a time; the patches linked together to create an entire lifespan of reminiscence.
Why couldnt the brain act like this, with each memory connected by some bond, each corridor
producing a tie to the next thought?
The fact of the matter is, the brain isnt some maze; it is not a labyrinth that carries all
your thoughts, memories, hopes, and dreams. The brain is just an organ of soft nervous tissue
contained in the skull of vertebrates, functioning as the coordinating center of sensation and
intellectual and nervous activity. But through it all, when I find a new experience, I feel as
though I store it in a corner of my brain to later be found as a wander through the corridors of my
labyrinth.




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Works Cited
"Parts of the Brain." Human-memory.net. The Human Memory, n.d. Web.
"Understanding Alzheimer's Disease-- The Basics." WebMD.com. Web MD, n.d. Web.
"What Is Alzheimer's?" Alz.org. Alzheimer's Associaion, n.d. Web.

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