Turned Upside Down - Grey's Anatomy

Chapter 15 - SeaTac

Meredith involuntarily had been to a lot of retirement homes in her life. Working as a Notarzt inevitably got her called to at least one nursing home per shift. She had seen her fair share –the good, the bad, the pretty and the ugly – and had soon decided that she would never voluntarily move in such a facility. They had known by address alone which were the good places and which were depressing to an almost dehumanizing degree.

Nowadays she spent several hours a week visiting her mother. She had to admit, she had never seen a home such as Roseridge in Munich. It was an American thing. The property was extremely nice and well kept, the building felt like a high-end resort, the nursing staff was lovely and very competent, her mother's room was modern and could be personalized with own pieces of furniture, linens, and décor – the possibilities were endless. And yet it was still a nursing home. A nursing home that focused on dementia patients. The windows were locked and the doors to the outside world could only be opened with a code – a very simple code. The sad reality was that by the time most residents moved to Roseridge, their dementia had progressed to the point that even the simplest six-digit code was too difficult to remember. Knives, scissors, candles, matches, or lighters were all locked away and all potentially dangerous liquids and substances were forbidden. The building was childproof. All those measures were sadly necessary to keep its residents safe. It was essentially a very nice prison with a very high price tag.

Meredith pretended to stare out the window, wondering why she came. Her mother sat across from her at the table in the window nook of the common area. Ellis had a stack of papers in front of her. Old medical flies and research notes that Meredith had brought her. Meredith knew her mother, she knew what her true passion was – medicine. While other loved ones brought their family members their favorite books or made photobooks, Meredith brought her mother medical journals or printed research off the internet. What kind of information Ellis retained shocked Meredith every time. Ellis was able to have a full in-depth conversation about general surgery or the human anatomy but wasn't able to recall a single personal memory from the last fifteen years.

It was emotionally draining to sit with her mother pretending to be someone else every visit – to give everything and never get anything in return. Since the diagnosis Meredith had read a lot of research on Alzheimer's, she had talked to experts, all to understand her mother's disease better. She had gained a lot of knowledge that frighted her on one hand and on the other put her a little at ease. Medically she understood, she knew what neurodegenerative meant, what it looked like on an MRI, what kind of disease progression she could expect, and how it would end someday. As a daughter, she had a hard time adjusting to the new reality. That this was it, that her mother didn't know who she was anymore, that Ellis was stuck in some past reality that Meredith wasn't a real part of. That the last eleven years that they had spent separated by an ocean would be the best years they ever had together – the only years they shared some mutual understanding. That she would most likely never have an honest, insightful conversation with her mother again.

It was pitch black outside. Instead of watching the rain pattering on the branches of the many trees outside, Meredith was watching the other occupants of the common room in the reflection of the window while she pretended to listen to her mother's monologue. There was the husband who came every day to read to his wife, sometimes he came with one of his kids or grandkids. There was the daughter who came every Thursday afternoon with freshly baked goods to visit her father. Every day he had a different visitor, someone to sit with him to talk and keep him company. There was the woman who always drew when Meredith came to visit. From time to time, a group of older ladies sat with her – all they ever did was paint together. She never talked. She seemed content with her art. There was the man, with the loud deep voice who liked to tell the same stories over and over again. His eyes lit up when his teenage grandson came to visit to play Yahtzee with him. There was the revolving group of residents who always sat together to drink tea or coffee and talk. They never shared the same conversation topic and talked past each other. It was very amusing to watch, but neither seemed to care much.