Who am I? Please take time to read this compelling piece written by 16 year old Jillian.
I came across a post to a group on Facebook called Memory People. An interesting group, members are mainly family members going through difficult adjustments to their Loved One Living With Dementia.
The post was by Mark Margolies, grandfather of a teenage girl Jillian. Jillian had created a collage and written an explanation of how she views her grandma who now living with Dementia. He told the group that until he saw the art piece his granddaughter had never mentioned anything about her grandmother's condition and it came as a surprise how profoundly it affects everyone around the PLWD.
For me it was eyeopening and compelling to see what a good grasp one so young had on her grandmothers condition, as well as being an impressive piece of art work.
I think we sometimes forget the teenagers and how losing a grandparent to Dementia can affect them. After all, most grandparents spoil their grandchildren and one moment the grandchild is the center of attention and affection for the grandparent, a good friend, a mentor, a safe refuge when the confusion of adolescence is too much to handle. Now suddenly that safe place is taken away by the disease and the support of the grandparent is now lost. Now the grandchild finds them-self having to support a person who most likely has always been their rock.
I was so impressed by what this young lady and depicted and written that I asked her grandfather if Jillian might give me permission to share it with you all. She graciously allowed me to share. I hope it impacts you as much as it did me.
Please read her comments below and view the collage :
Written by Jillian a 16 year old student for a school assignment.
For my piece Who Am I? I was trying to communicate both how I was feeling and the feelings of my Grandma Ariella.
She is 60, and has early-onset Alzheimer’s. While she is still alive, the woman I grew up adoring is gone, and all that is left of my Grandma is the shell of what once was.
I tried to portray how alone my Grandma felt, knowing what was happening to her and being completely incapable of helping herself. This woman that is now my Grandma is very anxious, cannot sit still for longer than a half minute, and cries often. This disease has had a remarkable toll on my family. The heartache I feel is indescribable, and I feel like my whole world is falling apart when I see her.
While making this piece, I tried very hard to make specific references to my Grandma. I placed myself in the middle to show how even though everything bad is happening around me, even though things are falling apart and cracking, leaving me unscathed, I am still weary and aching.
Because of her disease, my Grandma doesn’t recognize faces anymore. Even if she is technically “seeing” my mom, my dad, my brother, me, or anyone for that matter, she doesn’t see us. That is why I covered everyone else’s eyes except for her own. She doesn’t know anyone. I placed lots of words around the collage, to represent how my Grandma feels. Unnoticed, transparent, anxious, difficult, alone. All of these things she feels inside, but she doesn’t know how to deal with them, and there’s no way to fix them.
Her parents were concentration camp survivors, so the words like Holocaust, Soul Survivor, and War all are supposed to stand for where she came from. Even though she doesn’t remember, she came from somewhere and it is a miracle she was ever born. I found images of masks created by Native Americans, and I interpreted them as the demons that lurk in her head. My grandma, when she first found out she was sick, accused her therapist of rape and of giving her Alzheimer’s. That had a huge impact on my family, and so I have the word Rape in the college, and I have a photo of a woman covered in red handprints to symbolize the feeling of being molested.
The white plaid is to represent the cage that my Grandma feels trapped behind. There are a lot of photos of me in this collage, and while it is shameful, I often (regrettably) take her illness personally. Why can’t she remember me? Am I not worth remembering? I used myself a lot to show how she and I were close, but all that is left is her now.
I knew I wanted to make a collage when I started my piece, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. It was right after Thanksgiving break that we officially started the project, and after seeing my Grandma on Thanksgiving, I knew it had to be for her.
I started with general magazine photos, pictures from books, words from catalogs. I brought in photos of my Grandma along with other family photos. Using Photoshop, I pieced together a couple of photos of myself, and pasted it in the center. The piece was more emotionally strenuous than I was anticipating. After the collaging and painting was done, the piece still didn’t feel finished. I considered cutting actual holes in the foam core, to represent the missing pieces of memories, but that seemed too aggressive and would take something away from the piece. After getting advice and brainstorming, I decided cutting “cracks” into the piece, symbolizing the fact the world around me was breaking apart.
I made this piece for the only Grandma I really ever had.
![Jillian's Collage](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/aa771c_3e1c3807333b4a4a8cdca5486750abed~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_980,h_711,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/aa771c_3e1c3807333b4a4a8cdca5486750abed~mv2.jpg)