"I don't want to forget you or this day, and I'm trying to keep your memory alive."
Will it work this time? I wonder, then know it will not. It can't. I do not tell
her my thoughts, though. I smile instead because her words are sweet.
"Thank you," I say.
"I mean it. I don't want to forget you again. You're very special to me. I don't
know what I would have done without you today."
My throat closes a little. There is emotion behind her words, the emotions I feel
whenever I think of her. I know this is why I live, and I love her dearly at this
moment. How I wish I were strong enough to carry her in my arms to paradise.
"Don't try to say anything," she tells me. "Let's just feel the moment."
And I do, and I feel heaven.
Her disease is worse now than it was in the beginning, though Allie is different
from most. There are three others with the disease here, and these three are the
sum of my practical experience with it. They, unlike Allie, are in the most advanced
stages of Alzheimer's and are almost completely lost. They wake up hallucinating
and confused. They repeat themselves over and over. Two of the three can't feed themselves
and will die soon. The third has a tendency to wander and get lost. She was found
once in a stranger's...