Story Notes: In/Out of Phase

My latest story certainly rides on a different wavelength than my previous works - both in form and meaning. Let's jump in and see if I can't shed a little bit of light on things.

Alzheimer's has never been on my 'things to write about' list. Mostly because it's not something that I think about on a daily basis, but also because it's usually resided in the list of topics that I could write about, but probably not do very well in the end. 'Couldn't do it justice', in other words. Whether I did that with this story is in the hands of the contest judges, I suppose, so I guess we'll see...

So the latest (and perhaps final?) iteration of Oroboro's Sunset Shipping Contest was announced around BronyCon time. It certainly piques my interest, but looking at my work/life schedules, I almost immediately chalked it up to 'yep, no time for that'. If I'm honest, part of that is driven by by stupidly slow writing speed. If I could siphon even 10% of the speed that folks like Admiral Biscuit and PaulAsaran have, I'd have so much less stuff in my Drafts folder. :\

Fast forward now to the most recent FiM writeoff, which concluded a little over a week ago. The prompt theme was "Ship It". As you might imagine, a number of Derpy fics were created by contestants, and one of them struck a chord with me especially. The entry in question was NOT aimed directly at Alzheimer's. When I mentioned this in my comment to the entry, the author was surprised that anyone thought of Alzheimer's when reading their entry. But to them they could see it as a possibility too.

And this is where I got the idea for "In and Out of Phase". Not from the content of that Writeoff entry, but from the idea of Alzheimer's. you see, the theme of this last Sunset Contest was "endings" - meaning that Sunset had to start the story in a relationship, but end NOT in that relationship. Any method/cause was fair game, subject to a Teen rating.

At that point, with about 10 days left in the contest, my thoughts turned to my Grandma and her battle with dementia. She was never officially diagnosed with Alzheimer's, but dementia had her in an iron grip for sure. Symptoms were slowly creeping into her daily routine for a while, but the forced evacuation for Katrina was a big turning point for her, and not in a good way. Seemingly overnight she went from still pretty dang sharp to 'holy geez is she ok?'. Various medicines helped slow things a bit, but esp. at her age (she was well into her 70s, close to 80 when Katrina hit), it had a minimal effect.

My thoughts especially turned to the later years. She had moved back into the house, but only after years spent with either my folks or my mom's sisters while they fought the insurance jackals to get the house renovated. But to her, the house wasn't hers anymore, since it looked nothing like it used to. It was like it was all gone in her mind. And with Grandpa having passed in 1997, it must have really felt like it was all gone.

From that point she went downhill quickly. Physically she was in good health for her age, but mentally she was like a blank slate. Watching the news rebroadcast on loop, forgetting her pills, trying to leave the house at 2am, etc. If not for my aunts and my mom, we would have had to put her in a full care facility years earlier.

But perhaps the most painful things were seeing her forget people, events, places, and such. I recall vividly one of the last times I talked to her on the phone, she sternly tut-tutted me for running off to Missouri and marrying a girl without ever telling my parents.

I should note that when she said this we had been married over 10 years. Grandma attended the wedding, which was held the day after we graduated college - in Missouri.

I think it was that point where part of my brain finally had to admit that Grandma really didn't know who she was talking to anymore. Her mind had simply lost track of who I was, or my wife, or what we had been up to. I don't blame her, and never will. It wasn't her fault at all. Alzheimers did this, not her. If I'm mad, I'm mad at the disease for turning my sharp and kind grandma into a blank slate. To the point that she beganb to think of the people living with her all the time as simply house guests helping her out, not actual family members.

And so that's a looooong way of saying that's what was in my head when I wrote this new story. Remember, the theme was "Endings" to romantic bonds. Sunny never stopped loving Twilight. But Twilight - in a way unique to the world that Alzheimers operates - did.

Now the easy retort here is: well that doesn't stop Sunset from being there and caring and trying to express her love anyway. And you'd be right. We never stopped telling Grandma that we loved her either. But (at least in my exp.) it becomes impossible to maintain the same depth and structure of that relationship dynamic when it becomes a 1-way street. And so I envision it with this story. Sunset's marriage to Twi will never end. But that romantic link that both of them feed off? Alzheimers took that away in all but a few ways.

Ok I'm rambling. I just wanted to unload my thoughts on this, since it hit a bit of a personal note for me. Thanks for reading this far.

-GMP

PS: And if you have anyone in your family with Alzheimer's - I know it's tough, but don't stop telling them you love them. Just because.