Many years ago, I listened to a short theater play on the radio about a woman who was going to meet an old friend from college. When the woman (in her sixties or seventies) got her adult daughter to drop her off at her old friend’s home, she was astonished to find that her friend no longer remembered who she was.

At first, the woman was upset and sad because she didn’t understand how her friend could have forgotten all the escapades they had shared and all the fun as young women, going to parties, getting along or not, with other young women, getting married, having children and all that came with it.

Still, now, this friend lived in a ramshackle house with a freeloading son who was taking over her social security check and mistreating her. Still, while waiting for her daughter to come back, the woman found it deeply fulfilling to talk to the woman who clearly showed signs of dementia. Whenever she told the woman about the fun they had, the friend with dementia would ask, “Did we?” and ask to be told more about what they used to do.

Now and then, a flash of memory would show through, but it never lasted for long. Still, when the woman’s daughter came to pick her up, the woman hugged her friend, who could no longer remember, and thanked her for her hospitality. She cried on the way home because she knew even if she saw her again, her memory would only be worse, and it would be no use returning to visit her.

I was about fifty when I heard the story, which made me cry. I realized that any one of my friends or myself might meet with this same fate, and during that time, my stepmom was going through it, every time I called her, she would recognize my voice but not who I was. My Dad had passed away many years ago, but she said he was “out in the garage.” I was angry with this taker of people before they were dead. How cruel to have them walking among us but not recognizing who they are or who we are, and the condition is progressive.

Today, I spoke with a dear friend of over fifty years. We live in states far away, but each time we have spoken within the last five or six years, she has asked repeatedly who I am, even when she makes the call to me. This woman is part of a wonderful family who took me in when I was literally “on the streets.” Most of her family is deceased, but she and I have stayed connected since 1971 due to our deep love and appreciation for each other.

This afternoon’s conversation was brutal because she kept asking who I was, though she made the call. I gently filled in the places where her memory had forsaken her entirely, but in a cowardly way, I just wanted to start weeping and begging her to come back to me.

As usual, we tell each other that we love each other and hang up. This prompted me to look up some ways to stay engaged even with the most severe cases of dementia or Alzheimer’s, which are two different things. So, I am reading up and doing my best to hold onto my friend in more meaningful ways that may be helpful to her. We have both lost a bunch of people in our lives: parents and siblings (she is the last one standing in her family at age 78).

I do not know if she has been diagnosed, and I have to work up the courage to ask her relatives, but there are still ways to stay connected for as long as you can. When we talk, she laughs, and I work on my comedic stuff. Because of all of us “girls,” I was always the clown, making others laugh when my life itself was not laughable at all. I always feel better when making others happy.

If YOU have someone in your life dealing with memory loss, dementia, or Alzheimer’s, as much as you can, even if you are not a caregiver, keep turning on the light in their mind that will shine in their hearts. I pray, along with others, that one day this disease of the mind will be no more. While it is, we must fight with everything we have not to let it become a shameful, hidden thing in the dark, “let’s not talk about it” thing.