An Apple a Year

"Pippinfest."

It means "apple festival," and it has been held here in September since before I was born. It is one of the things in my life that do not change. Yet, around it, so many do.


It is 2006. September. I am 20 years old.

A girl in a band is singing a song that she wrote for me. She is 17, and when I look at her, I see the woman of my dreams... even though we're both just kids. I am her dream come true, and we both feel like we've stepped into a fairy tale.

I have two parents. My father has not been diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. He is 74, but in amazing health. Few guess his true age.

I attend Harrisburg Area Community College, earning a degree in "General Studies." I have not yet decided to become a teacher.


It is 2007. September. I am 21 years old.

I am still in love, but the fairy tale is cracking. Fears and resentments have crept into unguarded nooks on both sides of the growing rift between us. Yet, we've also grown to love each other more deeply. She is, alternately, my greatest comfort and my greatest strain.

The man who lives in my house has Alzheimer's Disease, and I no longer recognize him as my father. He has had one violent episode already, and another will come soon. The physical vitality that I once admired in him is now a source of apprehension. My mother and I are trapped in our home with a perilous stranger.

I attend McDaniel College, earning a degree in Mathematics with plans to teach. Having addressed my general requirements already, I find myself taking several heavy Math courses at once. For the first time in my life, I am struggling to succeed in school.


It is 2008. September. I am 22 years old.

I am still in love, but the fairy tale is over. My outlook on the romance is all too realistic now, and I have very little hope. I want desperately to rebuild the dream, and yet, with every aspect of my life crushing down around me, I don't know how to start.

The man who was once my father has been in institutional care since January, following a violent episode so severe that my mother called 911. This has taken none of the strain away from us, because we've been wrestling with a medical system that doesn't know how to handle a patient like him, and doesn't really want to. That system has shuffled him from hospital to hospital for months, loading him down with drugs that do not help.

I still attend McDaniel College. I am now taking 14 credits of Math at once, including my senior project. There is also an Education course, which includes an in-school practicum. I have begun to take my life a day at a time, because I worry that I will lose my mind if I look too far ahead.


It is 2009. September. I am 23 years old.

As far as I know, a girl in a band is singing a song that she wrote for me. I have no way of knowing, because I'm not there to see it. Our cherished romance ended months ago – buried alive, desecrated in its shallow grave, unearthed in a swell of regret, and found to be past saving. Now it lies on broken earth, dead but not at rest.

The ordeal of my father's disease has ended the only way it could: with the end of his life. It's only now, in the sudden stillness, that I remember the man he was before. I realize that I will never see that man again. The family that I knew is gone forever.

I am finished taking classes at McDaniel College. Now I'm a student teacher, and I answer to the name of "Mr. Grimes," even though I'm not sure who he is. So recently, I looked at a 17-year-old girl and saw the woman of my dreams. Now, every day, I face a classroom full of students that age, and they just look like kids to me. They have a passion for life that I only remember. I feel so old... but I don't feel like an adult, even though I'm trying so hard to be one. I'm trapped between worlds, forced to move forward and desperate to go back. All I really want is to have a passion for my life again. I feel that I was robbed of that, sometime between Septembers.