Today is much like the day in this photo. The sun shines brightly and fiercely. The sky wears its best blue. Winter grips us tightly enough, teasing those of us who live in the South with its power to turn into a deathly reality. The difference in today and the day of this photo is… Read more
Imagine this. You awaken in the morning and have no idea where you are, who are or who any of the people around you are. And that not knowing did not go away as the day progressed. It lasted all day. Alzheimer’s Disease does this to its victims. The Alzheimer’s Association aptly designates today—June 20… Read more
“Jennifer reads too many library books” wasn’t the only comment my elementary school teachers regularly wrote on my report cards. The other was “Jennifer talks too much.” I absorbed these comments as failures. But, through the intervening years when these comments resurfaced, I gradually decided what they wrote was not what they meant. One can… Read more
An aide at the Veterans Administration Nursing Home where my father was cared for the last year of his life told me something that broke my heart. My father was at the VA because he had Alzheimer’s. Earlier, when he had been fully himself, he had said many times to us he did not want to… Read more