There’s a moment.
A name escapes the lips.
A key turns in the wrong door.
A birthday once held in the heart is now a mystery in the mind.
At first, it’s just a slip.
But soon, the slips become gaps—
and the gaps?
A canyon where memories used to live.
This is dementia.
Not a single disease, but a thief with many masks.
It walks softly at first,
stealing short-term memories—
where you placed your glasses,
why you walked into a room.
Then it digs deeper.
It rewrites the past.
Loved ones become strangers.
Home begins to look like somewhere else.
In some, it comes dressed as Alzheimer’s,
the slow unravelling of identity.
In others, it marches in with a stroke,
leaving behind vascular scars on the brain.
Sometimes, it dances with hallucinations,
as in Lewy body dementia,
or silences the voice and stirs the soul,
as frontotemporal types often do.
It is not simply forgetting.
It is the undoing of who someone has been.
Families become caretakers.
Daughters become mothers to their mothers.
Sons read old letters aloud, hoping the sound will stir something… anything.
Yet amidst the fade, there are flickers.
A favorite song that brings back a smile.
A childhood story that finds its way back through the fog.
A laugh. A tear. A hand held in silence.
There is no cure, not yet.
But science is fighting back.
New treatments emerge, slowing the steps of this silent storm.
Awareness grows.
Support systems rise.
And most importantly—humanity listens.
Because dementia is not just about memory loss.
It’s about the soul trying to stay present in a world that keeps slipping away.
Let us not forget those who are forgetting.
Their story is still being written—even if they can no longer read it.
