Dear Nancy,

Today I feel like this guy right here. How are you?

Love,

Hayley

Dear Hayley,

I feel like that guy too, except that I’m hanging by one arm. Okay, that’s a little over-dramatized.  But I do feel like the idea of memory (whether you have Alzheimer’s or not) is wrought with danger—-like hanging by an ice pick off a glacier. Imagine that this picture is the guy’s memory of the event, but the guy above him has another recollection of it–a different picture in his mind. Who’s right?

I ask all this because I fear that my book about MY memories of MY father’s mind is going to cause disagreements amongst family members. Indeed, it already has. What can I do about that? I remember my way…as Beau’s daughter. I’m sure my father remembers me a whole different way. And I’m sure he is remembering in his own way now, as he looks at the pictures around his room. There’s one of a boy in a canoe in a river, and my father is convinced that is him–even though others have said it’s not. What is the truth, Hayley? How you remember? What you remember? Or how you feel?

Maybe if we all stop getting so territorial about whose truth is right, then maybe we won’t feel so sad about memory loss.

Love,

Nancy