Ninety one.

Yesterday was my Grandpa Jim's 91st birthday. Ninety one years old. It's something beautiful and unbelievable and sad and happy all at once.

Quite a bit has happened in the past year of his life. Much of our focus and worry had been on my Grandma Ruth because she is so very thin and doesn't make too much sense in our conversations. Her dementia is very noticeable when she speaks. Not that we had forgotten about Grandpa, but he had become quiet and keeps to himself. He always says he is doing just fine!

After the Holidays, Grandpa fell out of bed pretty hard and needed to go to a rehabilitation facility. After this fall, he was unable to return to the assisted living center. His new home is the memory care unit at the Nursing Home. While we've loved all his nurses and caregivers, these are by far the best. They know every quirk and are good with the details of his daily activities - now that he is unwilling (or unable... not sure) to share these things with us. Grandma had a pacemaker installed in March and followed Jim into the memory care unit after that procedure. It's nice to have them in the same hallway.

For his birthday we brought him a cupcake and some Fannie May candies - he can't resist sweets. I made a few low-key scrapbook pages with recent pictures to hang on his wall. The common room can be overwhelming, so we decided to head outside. It was such a beautiful night - 75 with the sun still shining. He wanted me to scratch his back. He really enjoyed the Fannie May candies.

It's hard to watch your grandparents age. For my Grandma, it has been a slow slide into dementia. I still see flashes of the Grandma I knew growing up, but with each visit there's more dementia and less Grandma. With my Grandpa, it seems as if it happened overnight. Sometime in the winter of his 88th year, he stopped speaking. He is a very smart man who holds a degree in Engineering from the University of Illinois. I think he just doesn't want to say the wrong thing, so he says nothing at all. I used to love having conversations with him. I will cherish those conversations forever.

Happy birthday, Grandpa. I love you.