I think I want to cry

I'm watching an episode in the fourth season of The West Wing entitled "The Long Goodbye". It's basically picking up the plot from last season that CJ's dad has Alzheimer's.

The really sad thing is that his rapid decline and general way of acting reminds me very much of my own grandfather. The similarities are so striking that, I think, its finally getting to me just how far gone my grandfather is.

My grandfather was a genius. He was a member of MENSA. He has a letter from the British government stating that his efforts at Blechley Park and in the Pacific during World War II were instrumental in the Allies winning the war. He held some kind of director/management position with BC Hydro. He went skiing, he went fishing, he went hiking, and biking. He told some of the most interesting war stories I've ever heard. He knew so much. When my mother and I were clearing out his workshop we found blueprints, dozens of blueprints, for electrial devices.

And now he wears diapers. He shuffles along the coridoors of his nursing home. When I last saw him he was trying to shuffle through a window. Just shuffling into it until someone called his attention to it. The really sad part for me is that he still knows who I am. I wonder what goes on in his head.

And now I'm just being overly morose. I'm going to shut up now.