“The Day That”

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.
~C. S. Lewis

That day. Oh, that day. Seared in my memory. The day that my mind officially let enter the very real possibility that Russ had Alzheimer’s disease.

I was driving to the local Alzheimer’s center to gather information. I’d watched Russ’s unnatural behavior long enough to know something was amiss. Hours spent googling the disease had reinforced my worries. Could it…could it possibly be? He seemed too young—not yet sixty—and the typical symptoms didn’t always fit his behavior, yet I couldn’t squelch that pesky sense of foreboding.

So, there I was, large as life, sitting in the parking lot. My body was involuntarily jerking, and my hands, ice cold, shook on the steering wheel. I remember watching them tremble with an odd, detached curiosity. I was about to physically enter an Alzheimer’s center, break a long-held silence with my voice, terrifyingly face my fears, and inquire about dementia. My heart pounded. Was I really doing this? This was a step that, once taken, could never be undone. Whatever happened, the matter would now be given life.

Honest emotion: Petrified