Dearest Hayley,
I am on vacation with all of our children (John and his wife Ashley, Andrew and his wife Samantha, and David) and we are making memories. They are stored in my brain and my heart, and I will rely on them in the years to come to bring joy to my life. Until, God forbid, I forget.
I’ve been taking morning walks during which I think about remembering and forgetting—-and the strange unknown space in between. I once saw a child (at a resort pool in Indonesia) who was in a similar space. He wasn’t drowned yet he wasn’t drowning anymore. He was laid out on the pool deck somewhere between the two places. I thought then, and again now, that we don’t have words for the in-between spaces of life and death, remembering and forgetting.
Seems to me that Alzheimer’s is one word to describe the long journey of between-ness. When I think of it in these terms, the disease feels almost spiritual and I am less afraid.
Love,
Nancy
P.S. That boy survived, and I’m sure the experience is one he and his mother would rather forget. Yet, I think time in the middle space made them love life and making memories all the more.
dryland.co 
I am thinking that the journey to “between-ness” might in fact be our lives, although the use of the term that life is journey is not what I am about to take on as my mantra. I am wondering about all of it constantly…like what keeps the heart pumping, the blood flowing, and the lungs contracting?What keeps everything inside my skin? All too deep…move on! I take walks in the mornings as well and find myself whistling the strangest tunes; the national anthem, christmas carols, “body language” etc. and then begin to think “what the hell does that mean?”…all I really know is that I have never been happier with my entire family here in Maine and only wish one day soon to spend time with my dearest friends somewhere….