When my father, who had Alzheimer’s, came home without my three-year-old son, we lived twenty minutes of terror—and learned the hard truth about dementia and driving.

“I have a problem,” my sister would say, her voice tight with worry. “What’s your problem?” I’d ask. “I have von Willebrand.”

In 1990, my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. We lived together for years, yet we never talked about what the diagnosis meant to him. Looking back, the silence around his illness is what I grieve most.

This is what I got when I asked AI for a picture to represent this story. I didn’t know AI had a sense of humor. I was teaching a nurse aide class about death and dying in long-term care when a student raised her hand. “At my facility,” she said, “when a resident dies, we’re told to say they’ve gone to Montana.” “Someone actually told you to say that?” I asked. “Yes.” “That doesn’t make sense,” I said. Facilities may have HIPAA policies, but once families are notified, roomma

They said John couldn’t communicate. They were wrong. What followed was a brief, profound reminder of how easily healthcare mistakes silence for emptiness.

A new nurse aide was instructed to inhale a cigarette for a resident. A real story about unsafe delegation, scope of practice, and systemic failure.

My younger brother just turned 60 and has been living with Alzheimer’s for several years. Before the disease, he was a successful, award-winning chef.

“Can we even use weed here?” Paul asked.

I ran into the living room, thinking something had gone terribly wrong, and found her frantically pushing buttons on her phone while a rap song blared. I turned off the music and asked what she’d asked her phone to do.