Clank. Clank. The metal balls, once shiny but now dulled from years of usage, rub against each other. My grandfather holds them in his palm, and gently rolls them around and around in circles. I picked them up once, and tried to do the same, but they were too big and too heavy for my little nine year-old hands to hold.
    “Grandpa, why do you roll those balls?” I’d asked.
    “I roll them because it gives my hand something to do, and helps me be peaceful,” he replied, still rolling.
    My grandfather had just moved into our house with my grandmother. My grandmother was always bustling around and murmuring, as if she couldn’t stay still for one moment. She was always cooking, cleaning, or muttering about what ungrateful slobs we all were. My grandfather on the other hand, was the mellow one, only becoming animated when provoked. He was always sitting in an old rocking chair, rolling those metal balls, and staring off into space. He looked like he was pondering the universe.      Occasionally, I would sit there with him, never speaking, just sitting and rocking.
    My grandmother got annoyed with him very often, glaring at him when he refused to do something she asked, no demanded, he do. He would either brush her off good-naturedly or continue rocking. I suppose there will be fights and spats when you’ve been married for as long as they were. But everyday after lunch, my grandparents would always take a walk together. They were always constant, following the same routine. My grandmother muttered, and my grandfather rolled those metal balls.

    I don’t really remember when I began to notice a change. It was something that happened gradually. My grandfather began to forget where he put things or what he had done just minutes before. My grandmother’s scolding and annoyance increased, and so did her bustling and busy work. I didn’t think much of it, but then it got worse. My grandfather began to snap at everyone and become enraged at the slightest things. He would get so frustrated when he couldn’t remember where he put anything, and what he was doing here.
    “I want to go back to China!” he bellowed.
    “We can’t, we live here now,” my grandmother tried to placate him.
    But he would not be soothed. “Then I’ll kill myself!”
    After this episode, it only got worse. He threatened to kill himself almost every day, and then multiple times a day. My grandmother would just sigh, and then cry later to my mom.

    At this point, I was old enough to know that my grandfather had Alzheimer’s disease. The disease was literally eating away at his brain and causing him to become someone entirely different. The disease was taking him away, right before our very eyes. He lost weight, refused to eat, and refused to do anything. He stopped taking walks with my grandmother and he refused to take his medicine. My grandmother became more and more frenzied, and constantly fretted and hovered over my grandfather.
    One day, I realized suddenly that he wasn’t rolling his metal balls anymore. When I questioned him about them, he didn’t reply. So I asked my mom. She told me that my grandfather was sick, so my grandmother took the balls away from him so he wouldn’t hurt himself or lose them. She said that maybe someday she would give the balls back to him. I never saw them again.