How my grandfather's dementia changed our relationship — and kept us connected

When I was a teenager, my great-uncle went missing. The family were beside themselves, searching high and low for the man who had seemingly disappeared out of thin air. He was later found several states away, confused and in his car. This was the first time I’d heard the word “dementia.”

I'd driven home for Thanksgiving with him in that very car the year before this happened. It concerned me that this man could have declined so severely and suddenly that he could end up states away, not knowing how he got there or who he was. He lived across the street from his brother, my grandfather, in a suburb of Memphis. I’d always found it quaint: two grown men and their wives living directly across the street from one another, sharing so much life together. I hadn’t thought of how it would feel for one to watch the other decline before his very eyes.

Dementia is the broad umbrella term used for individuals struggling with failing memory, confusion and a shift in reasoning or other skills. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, Alzheimer’s disease accounts for 60 to 80% of dementia cases, and one in three senior citizens dies with Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia.

My family knows that statistic all too well. Almost a decade after his brother's diagnosis, my grandfather also began exhibiting signs of confusion and mental deterioration. He retired at 81, and in the years after his retirement, his son, my father, began to notice severe memory loss. Things only went downhill after my grandmother died.

At that point, my dad decided to bring my grandfather, then living in a nursing home in Memphis, to a home closer to him in Virginia so that he could be there more often for the man who had lost his wife of 73 years. It felt like a self-fulfilling prophecy, him living in that home, marking the days until he died. I hated that a man who’d once been called “Big John,” who dominated every room he entered, had been reduced to such a depressing life. So I found myself calling him nearly every day.

At the time, I was isolated and lonely while living abroad in London, where we'd moved for my husband's job. I didn't know anyone other than my husband, who worked late hours in an office while I worked from home, finishing in the early afternoon. I felt a real kindred connection with my grandfather — both of us alone in new places, extroverts who had been left to be hermits in our own lives.

We’d talk every day. Some days he’d ask the same question three times in a row. Some days he’d tell me outlandish stories from his days in the local Tennessee government, all of which made him out to be a hero and many of which I assumed were embellished a bit. He’d recite poems with a beautiful rhythm and time, telling me they were originals, though I later discovered that this was not the case. And I tried to help him manage the depression he felt, being so alone without his beloved wife, who he’d been with since they were teenagers.

His own dementia was growing more and more pronounced, his slips more apparent, his confusion clear. He’d often ask me about my grandmother, where she was, what she was doing, and I’d tell him she had died. It felt like we were living a less whimsical version of that Drew Barrymore movie 50 First Dates, where I’d pick up the phone and have to remind him of the sad existence he was really living. But throughout this, he remembered me, and I never doubted his love.

I’d been struggling in my own way. I hadn’t found any friends, I was severely homesick and was questioning if I’d even made the right decision in moving across an ocean from nearly everyone I loved. So one day, I rang my grandfather to tell him everything I’d been feeling. I poured my heart out, through tears, hoping to find the comfort and reassurance I’d grown to expect from him. Instead I was hit with hateful words, confirming my greatest fears. His words were delivered with malice and anger, something I’d never experienced from the man who bought me a giant golden box of chocolates every year at Christmas. It felt like he’d been possessed, like someone else had taken over his body and kicked out my loving, overwhelmingly complimentary grandfather.

I got off the phone devastated, sobbing and wishing more than anything that I could return to my childhood, to the grandfather I’d always known. Suddenly, I had an image pop into my head of myself as a little girl, standing in the sun and holding hands with my grandfather. He wasn’t hunched over or sick. He was standing tall.

Immediately, I began to write. I wrote for about an hour, and in the end, I wrote a six-page short story about a little girl who broke her grandfather out of his nursing home so they could have one last adventure together. In the months that followed, as I continued to talk to my grandfather, I turned that short story into a novel called Sun Seekers. I told much of the story from the perspective of a 6-year-old little girl named Gracie, who saw the goodness in the world. I also included the perspective of her mother, LeeAnn, the pessimistic adult who could voice what was really going on. The process was therapeutic and yet also heartbreaking; uplifting and devastating. Though I mostly kept my writing to myself, I did pluck up the courage to tell my grandfather when I came home for Christmas that year. I told him that I was writing a book about him and that I planned to dedicate it to him. He understood what I said and was thrilled by the concept, always wanting to see his name in print.

Sadly, my grandfather died two months later and has been gone now for almost seven years. But as of Tuesday, his name will be in print. After my own long journey, Sun Seekers has finally come out into the world. It’s not an answer to the struggle of those helping a loved one with dementia; I’m not a medical expert or a therapist. I’m just a person who wants others going through this to feel less alone.

Rachel McRady is an Emmy-winning writer and editor for Entertainment Tonight. Her debut novel, Sun Seekers, is out now.