When Dementia Steals the Security Question Answers

You know those security questions you’re supposed to answer if you forget your password?

Your mother’s maiden name.

Your first car.

Your first pet.

My sister-in-law called about my brother, who has dementia. She was trying to log in to one of his accounts. She called his former employer and asked them to reset the password. They did—but the reset required answering his security questions.

Some were easy. We all knew our mother’s name. I have a picture of him standing in front of his first car.

But the first pet?

Who knew?

We grew up in the 1960s. Animals came and went. Dogs didn’t go to the vet; they went into the backyard. Cats showed up and disappeared. Some were loved. Some didn’t have names.

I asked my other siblings and a couple of cousins if they remembered my brother’s cat’s name. One brother remembered that his first cat was named Three—and Three didn’t last long—so that probably wasn’t the name that would be listed. Another wasn’t sure. My siblings with dementia wouldn’t know. My mother, who would have known instantly, is gone.

That’s when I realized:

There aren’t many people left who remember the small stuff. Not the milestones—those get written down—but the ordinary details of our shared history.

I went to my journals. I’ve always written things down. I found the name of my own first cat. The day she died. Dozens of other pets.

What I didn’t find—at least at first—was my brother’s cat.

Later, in an old essay, I found her. Princess. A Siamese. The kind of cat he would definitely remember, because she had kittens in his bed.

I sent the name to my sister-in-law.

By then, she had reached someone who understood that people with dementia don’t remember the name of their first pet and helped her reset the password.

I wanted to know if I had solved the mystery—if the missing name was Princess. I texted my sister-in-law.

She texted back, “They removed the questions and reset it.”

“But I really want to know if it was Princess,” I said.

“That’s a mystery you’re just going to have to live with. Welcome to my life,” my sister-in-law said.

I’ve thought about getting rid of my fifty years of journals more than once. What’s the point?

Now I’m not so sure. When memories start disappearing, someone has to hold them.

Maybe someday someone in my family will need to know that in fifth grade a girl named Melody made me cry.