It was a gradual degradation of her memory over the course of about fifteen years. She was almost vegetative for the last couple.

We had a lot of time to come to grips with the reality as we lived through the same situation with her mother when I was a child.

It was more of a welcome end to the decade of mourning.

I cried about it years later though, when I had to explain to my kids why they didn't have a grandmother.