Nana Flashback

Before my grandmother became tangled in the web of Alzheimer's there were various incidents that were either early signs of the disease or the normal changes that come with age. As with all seniors citizens there came a time when her driving skills began to erode and we as a family were left with deciding when the keys should be taken away.

We were luckier than a lot of the families who have been in the news over the last several years. We waited to long to take away the keys but fortunately God or fate was smiling on my grandmother because when the unavoidable happened no one was hurt.

One morning she got into her car intending to drive to her Senior Citizens club. Now her garage was attached to the house and the back wall of the garage faced the street. In order to leave her property she had to back out of the garage and loop around the house to reach the road.

She started the car as she normally would and allowed the engine to warm up. Her car had a manual transmission and when went to put in gear she missed reverse and put it into neutral. She depressed the accelerator and of course nothing happened. At that point she must have panicked because when she shifted gears again she put it into drive with the engine fully revved. She left skid marks on the floor of her garage and went right thru the wall.

In the front yard just outside the rear wall of the garage were three trees. Somehow she missed all of the trees and continued across the lawn. Separating the lawn from the sidewalk was a low brick and wrought iron wall. She went through that like a hot knife through warm butter and into the street.

The street she lived on was fairly busy but fortunately no one was coming in either direction. As she crossed the street she managed to regain some control over the car and turned the steering wheel hard to the right. She made a u-turn jumped the curb and flipped the car onto the passenger side door coming to rest right in the middle of her own driveway.

When the police arrived she was sitting on the passenger door calmly asking for someone to help her out of the car. She walked away without a scratch. The only casualty: her driver's license.