Dear Readers,

I would like to talk about dementia today. It's especially topical if you are a live-in caregiver, looking after an aging relative (or friend), and your patient is succumbing to a loss of rationality that alarms you.

Mind you, I am no expert on this topic, but looking after my kid sister for the past eight years has given me some kind of credential!

Robin has lost a lot of ground. Her confusion makes my senior moments look trivial—and some of my lapses have been corkers!

My fave, to date, was a recent trip to the gas station to gas up my car. I paid 20 bucks inside, then walked outside, jumped into my venerable (2008) Chevy Impala—and drove off without pumping any gas!

That was so embarrassing, I didn't go back to get what I'd paid for! But then I quickly rationalized that most people in their 80s are at least a little addle-pated. (I am, if nothing else, a realist!)

I am also the kind soul who, when asked to assist Robin in late 2014, relocated from Michigan to Wisconsin to do so. She was pretty sharp at the time, but clearly worried that she just might be tucked away in an elder care facility someday.

One of the first things she said to me was: “Please don't let anyone put me into one of those places!” This told me that people with incipient dementia feel embarrassed about it, and often fret that it could eventually get them removed from their homes.

I assured Robin that this was not going to happen, which visibly calmed her. I recall that, at that moment, I gave myself all due praise for hanging in!

The simple truth is: you do what you can with what you've got, and you apply as much rationality to your caregiving role as possible.

It helps, in my case, that Robin adopted a stray dog (shortly before my arrival in Wisconsin) who is so smart we have made her (the dog) Morale Officer of this outfit. “Brooke” is also a humorist, and, although at least 70 years old in human years, she has an enviable sense of play. In a word, she cracks us humans up regularly with her antics. (I would give her a medal if I could be assured that it wouldn't go to her head.)

Funny, how things work out. I was a wreck after being widowed in late 2014. My wife of nearly half a century had succumbed to lung cancer, and I had lost my starring role as her husband. But then I got that call from my older sister (another Brooke) that felt me out on leaving Michigan for “a couple of weeks” to help my younger sis in Wisconsin return home after a brief hospitalization—and I actually jumped at the chance to roll out for cow country. I was desperate to change the channel—and, when I did, I stumbled into a whole new lease on life!

I think the lesson in all this is that you're happiest when you're making yourself useful! You help others, and you help yourself.

You could even say that helping others is a form of selfishness!

(I would attempt to sort that one out, but I didn't get a degree in psychology. I settled for a B.A. in Social Science with a Spanish minor—in 1965—the quickest way to end a decade in college and avoid becoming a professional student!)

Thanks for reading what I write. It's not very professional, but it organizes me—and it comes from the heart.

—Michael E. Hearons