Do You Remember?

This is a book about an enduring love. In this book there is romance and kindness and the strength of the human spirit in adversity.

There are three people in this marriage and one of them is slowly fading away…

This is a book about dementia.

Only it’s not.

What this book is really about is people. It just so happens that in the very centre of this book there is someone battling with dementia. These things don’t happen in a vacuum though, so there are other people battling with her too. Dementia is cruel and it takes from everyone that it touches.

Everything we do in life causes ripples. There are consequences and effects and those close to someone who is suffering and edging closer and closer to death are drawn into their battle. The more they care, the deeper into the battle they are drawn.

Melissa is dying.

This wasn’t the death that she had envisaged, not that she had gotten around to giving it much thought, but it is certainly far sooner than she had ever anticipated, especially for this type of death. If she’d given it any consideration, a death at her age would have entailed a protracted period of partying and fast living and a sudden, dramatic and romanticised ending.

People of Melissa’s age don’t make a habit of dying.

They definitely don’t make a habit of getting diagnosed with dementia.

James, Melissa’s husband, takes a hold of her hand and he squeezes it. He intends to keep holding her hand all the way through this part of her journey. He doesn’t know what else he can do.

Neither of them have a clue as to where they are going or how they will deal with the trials and tribulations awaiting them as a disease that deconstructs someone from the inside out takes a hold of Melissa and changes both of their lives forever.

They are going to try though and that is all they have, the determination to make the best of it and to continue to share their lives.

They made a promise.

Through thick and thin and until death parts them, they will live their lives together, help and support each other and grow and learn more about each other, and…

…the rules have changed and so they are going to have to change and adapt in the face of a terrible life-altering and life-ending disease.

This is a story about people and their courage, compassion and sheer bloody mindedness in the face of a certain and tragic end, and their capacity to love and to see a brighter side, even when there appears to be none…

…because there is one, despite everything, there is always good in the world. Sometimes you have to fight to find that good, and that’s a battle that is always worth waging.