last.
"Think of five things in your life that are meaningful," instructed our dementia training leader, "and write them down." The PowerPoint slide had a cartoon robber on it, under the words: DEMENTIA IS A THIEF. My partner and I took out the scraps of blue paper and began to write. I was almost paralyzed by how broad the assignment was--of course, people came to mind first, but that can't be all she meant? Would I write down each of my children individually, or just write "family" on one and consider everyone a part of it? I looked around and people had their heads down, writing steadily. Time was ticking and I had to start. I stared at the blue scraps and wrote the first thing that came to mind: sisters . To complete the rest, I thought about what makes a day good for me--spending time with my husband and daughters, doing something physical, learning something, and writing in some way. Our scraps of paper heavy with the weight of life's meaning, we ...