I know where I’m going. I’m still myself. I just can’t remember things as well as I once did. So on short trips, I work hard not to be confused. I’ll say to myself, “What are we going to do? How long are we staying?” It’s like I’m talking to my other self—the self I used to be. She tells me, “This is what we need to buy—not that.” I’m conscious of that other self guiding me now.

Here at the house I’m fine. Sometimes it takes me a little longer to get dressed than it used to; sometimes I forget what I put on the stove. But that’s just normal, right?

Actually, I know it’s not just normal. I know I have Alzheimer’s. I know I have to work harder than before to keep things straight and do what Dan says. So I do! It doesn’t always work out, though, and Dan gets frustrated with me. I get frustrated with him, too. We’re both very strong people, in our own different ways—I’m quieter, he’s not—and both of us speak our minds.

The thing is, before all this happened, we never argued. A little grumble here or there but that was it. Everything just went like a breeze. And we had fun! We had a lot of fun together, every day, coming up with new ideas, making them work. That seems a long time ago now.

Lately, I’ve been wanting to go home. Not the house that Dan and I have here, wonderful as it is, but home, to Everson, Pennsylvania, where I grew up. It’s been such a while since I was there. Dan doesn’t want me to drive there, and so I won’t misbehave and drive without him knowing it—although I’d like to! I’ll let him drive. Maybe this time I’ll take my parents down with me.

No—I don’t mean that. Just saying that aloud reminds me they’re no longer alive. I do have a problem remembering that. That’s the only thing that bothers me. I don’t know why, but it does. I guess because every time I forget and remember, it’s like going through mourning again, with that same pang you felt in the pit of your stomach the first time you heard that your mother or father died. I feel that pang every time I remember.