I'm late and I am sorry for that. But I do hope that you all had a very merry Christmas and will have a good start into 2017.
My Christmas was awesome and there was one very special moment for me this Christmas that I would like to share with you.
My Christmas tale of this year is also about my grandma (my fathers mother).
She is 92 years old and living with my grandpa (he will celebrate his 97th birthday in a few weeks) in a retirement home.
However, grandma has had severe Alzheimer for many years now. She can no longer leave her bed and usually doesn't seem to be aware of the world around her. Whenever I visit my grandparents I am talking to her, telling her stories of our times together when I was a kid and singing songs to her which we used to sing. In the earlier years she sometimes chimmed in the songs. But for a very long time we could never tell if she was aware of the world around her at all anymore. She is barely able to speak and if she does she usually can only repeat words spoken just before (but make no mistake, I'll never stop telling her stories or singing to her!).
When we (my sister, my mother and I) visited them on Christmas day my grandma was lying in her bed, pale and apparently oblivious to everything. But when we talked to her and when I played the lyre there was suddenly a change about her. She started smiling and her face, so pale before turned a healthy reddish, she was clearly aware of our presence. We fed her some cake and when we asked her if she wanted some more (to which she would usually just react by opening or not opening her mouth to the fork with the cake) she suddenly said: "Ja, ein bisschen mehr." ("Yes, a little more.") which was not merely a repeating of words spoken before (her speaking at all is extremely rare by now), but she had clearly understood the question and given an own response. When later on I sang "Alle Vˆgel sind schon da" ("all the birds are here already", a popular children song in Germany) she chimmed in (she hasn't done this in years!).
I really cried a bit with joy and when I kissed her I told her that she had given us an awesome Christmas present and grandma was smiling.
I am not a particularly religious person, but if there is a spirit of Christmas it was right there with us in that room that day.
