Doris Knust (1937-2024)

I have been mourning one of my favourite people in the world for two years now. My grandmother has however only died today. Many people will miss her together with me. She has been a source of love, joy, and support for many, not only within her immediate family.

Alzheimer’s is a cruel illness. It takes away a person before they even die. You see them disappear, a process that is neither linear nor predictable. It causes anxiousness in the person affected and everyone who loves them.

My grandmother is the third of my grandparents that I lost to Alzheimer’s before they died. This forces a lot of questions upon the people around the one suffering from it. Is your grandmother still your grandmother even if she doesn’t recognize you any more? If she can’t remember any of the memories that you shared? If she’s just staring at you - or if she doesn’t even look at you.

One of the worst things is that it overshadows the life a person lived. They are still there, but you miss them everyday.

My grandmother deserved more. She has been a hero in my life. Although her time on earth has been radically different from mine, she has always cheered me on, even when she didn’t understand every piece of it.

Doris Knust née Wittstock grew up as a child affected by World War II. Her childhood was marked by living as a refugee, taking care of her siblings when her mother was too ill. Her path that led her mother and her siblings in the end to Hamburg crossed many different countries. She grew up being responsible for the family’s income alongside her mother. She started working as a teenager at a laundry as the family couldn’t afford to provide her with the resources for a formal job training. She would work on different jobs, often as a cleaning lady for the rest of her life. She took care and raised two children, and she has been the most caring grandmother I could imagine. She took care of her husband, my grandfather, to an extent that left him quite helpless without her.

My grandmother's life was marked by many of the injustices women in the 20th century met. There were a lot of hardships. However, even if she told me frankly about them, she never described them to me as tragic. My grandmother was the most positive person that I have ever met. She did not ignore the bad things happening, but she chose to focus on the good things, and being thankful for every little thing. Her view of the world has marked me more than words can describe.

When I lived close by, we would meet as often as possible. When I lived far away, we would call each other several times a week, often late in the evening, when everyone was asleep. When she slowly turned blind in the last ten years of her life, she got a bigger TV to watch documentaries about the places where I lived. She has seen pieces about every single church and city in Sweden and cheered on more football clubs than I even know of (she’s always been a fan of underdogs). My grandmother didn’t speak a word of another language, but when she met my Swedish partner, a month after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she gave him an enormous hug and said in German: “I just speak slowly and loudly, so you’ll know what I mean when I say: Welcome to the family.” This woman found love and kindness in the darkest times and I will forever cherish that heritage.

If you want to and can, please try and give other families more time with their loved ones by donating to this or another research organisation trying to battle Alzheimer's. And hug your loved ones as often as you can.