The slip is slow at first,

It may just be the occasional speaking mishap.

Then it's how your name always seems to slip the mind.

Until your only confirmation of recognition

lies in the warmth of the eyes.

Slowly everything turns into a “thing”,

Until you are desperately trying to decipher which

“Thing needs to be put in the thing that’s next to the thing”.

The once amazing storyteller becomes easily frustrated

trying to simply relay how their day was.

The understanding follows the words,

Now it is a challenge to ask the completion of a simple task.

When eating has lost its appeal and only strangers seem to visit,

The sheer cruelty of the disease is apparent and infuriating.

The loved one you idolize no longer remembers you,

They have been taken.

Losing a loved one is painful,

But witnessing a loved one’s slow loss of memories and identity is

agonizing.