However, the day was not without its challenges. I visited Grace, but I wasn’t there for longer than 15 minutes. I can’t tell you how much it hurts to see her the way she is. Each time, it’s still a shocking thing to experience because I’m so used to the old Grace, the Grace that I knew before dementia. What was most important this evening was that she was happy, or as they say in Dutch, “vrolijk.” There still isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t think about how I can fix this, how I can make it better, how I can solve it, how I can bring Grace back. It’s so, so hard.
I’ve made a Cottage Pie for Grace!
I haven’t mentioned Grace until now, and I had planned to skip seeing her tonight. I just wanted to take it easy and do some simple things, like flipping through the dictionary and working on the curtains. While I was taking out the trash, I also decided to prepare a cottage pie for tomorrow. I used beef mince and mashed potatoes, which makes it a cottage pie instead of a shepherd’s pie. I cooked the meat and mashed the potatoes, and it’s currently in the fridge.
Tomorrow, I’ll take it over to Grace’s and warm it up for her. I hope she’ll appreciate the gesture, even though I didn’t end up seeing her tonight. I spent about an hour doing all of this, and now I’m feeling quite tired. I’ll sign off for tonight and talk again tomorrow.
