17May2025
Today I realised memory can become a battlefield Im forced to fight on no matter the cost.
Ive started to lose the simple things. At breakfast I couldnt tell whether little Max prefers strawberryyogurt or peachyogurt. A few days later I forgot which day of the week his swimming lesson was. Then, as I pulled out of the supermarket car park, I hesitated for a heartbeat, unable to remember which gear I usually use to get moving.
The sudden stall of the engine set off a panic that settled deep in my chest. I sat there for several minutes, hands gripping the steering wheel, terrified to glance at the rearview mirror.
That evening I tried to explain it to Emily.
Somethings not right with me, I said. Theres a fog over my head all the time.
She placed her palm first on my forehead, then on my cheeka gesture weve been using for ten years.
Youre just exhausted, George, she replied gently. Youre not sleeping enough and youre working too hard.
I wanted to shout, Its not exhaustion! It feels like someone is erasing me piece by piece with an eraser! but I swallowed the words. The fear in her eyes was worse than my own.
From then on I began to write everything down in a small notebook.
Thursday.
Pick Max up at 5:30pm.
Buy a loaf of sourdough, not wholemeal. Emily wont eat wholemeal.
Call Mum on Sunday at 12:00pm ask about her blood pressure.
My phone soon became an extension of my body. Without it I felt like a shell drifting through a familiar room, helpless and useless.
One afternoon I truly got lostnot in a forest or an unfamiliar town, but in the neighbourhood Ive called home for seven years. I left the tube station on my usual route, lost in my own thoughts, lifted my head and suddenly the crossroads I thought I knew was alien. The little chemist that always stood on the corner had been replaced by a coffee shop that had never existed before. A cold sweat broke out under my shirt.
People walked past me as if nothing were amiss, oblivious to a man who had misplaced himself. The world turned cold and indifferent. I fumbled for my phone, opened the map, and saw a blue dot blinking on a street I didnt recognize. I typed in my home address and, like a child sent alone to the shop for the first time, followed the robotic voice direction after direction. I turned up at my flat three hours later.
Emily waited with a cup of tea on the table, her silence louder than any outburst could have been. I didnt know where to hide from the shame.
Ive booked you with a neurologist, she said finally, without meeting my eyes. Wednesday at four. Ill take the afternoon off and go with you.
I nodded, a lump choking my throat. The thought of white coats, early signs, and agerelated changes filled me with a primal dread. I was about to become the patient spoken of in the third person.
Wednesday morning, while Emily was in the bathroom, I absentmindedly grabbed her phone to check the weather. My own phone lay charging on the kitchen counter. On its screen were open tabs:
Dementia early symptoms in men over 45.
How to support a spouse with memory loss.
Support groups for families.
Legal steps for guardianship.
I threw the phone across the room as if it had burned my hand. I sank onto the edge of the bed, breathless. It wasnt just a medical assessment; it was a verdict on our shared future. Emily no longer saw me as husband, partner, or fathershe saw a problem, a responsibility.
The day at the clinic passed in a muffled bubble. I answered questions, repeated word listsapple, table, coinand watched the nurses pen light flicker. Inside my head only one sentence rang loud: guardianship.
When we left, dusk was settling. Emily clasped my arm tightly, almost frantic.
The doctor said its nothing seriousjust stress. You need more rest, she said, trying to sound upbeat. Lets go home, Ill heat up the stew. Im starving.
I watched her profile, the set of her lips, the worry line near her eye. She was playing the part of the hopeful wife, but I could see the fear, the exhaustion, the endless cascade of days where I would become more childlike and she more caretaker.
At the car, Emily handed me the keys.
Your turn. Youre better at parking.
It was a simple, ruthless test. I sat behind the wheel, turned the ignition, and thenblank. I couldnt remember where the indicator lever was. My hand hovered uselessly.
I stared at the dashboard, the familiar buttons now scattered like letters without order. I closed my eyes, inhaled deeply.
Emily my voice cracked, I cant
Silence filled the cabin. I expected reproach, tears, perhaps a comforting word. Instead Emily opened the passenger door, stepped around the car, and gently touched my shoulder.
Shift over, she said.
I shuffled into the passenger seat. She slipped into the drivers seat, buckled up, and eased the car forward. At a traffic light she brushed the back of her hand against her cheek, a fleeting, almost reflexive motion.
The lights of the unfamiliar city streamed past the window. I realized I wasnt just forgetting the way home; I was forgetting the way to myself. Emily, once my partner, was becoming a weary stranger steering a helpless passenger.
The quiet war with the illness, with myself, and with the remnants of our family had begun.
Emily introduced a new system. She hung a large calendar on the fridge, bolded with entries such as Blood test, Neurologist, Physiotherapy. On cabinet doors she stuck stickers listing their contents. She bought a pill organiser and each morning arranged vitamins, nootropics, and a calming tablet with meticulous care. She called every hour to monitor my movements, appointments, medication, even my thoughts.
Our tenyearold son, Max, sensed the tension before he could name it. He grew unusually quiet. One afternoon, while helping him with a maths problem, I froze at a simple equation; the numbers danced uselessly before my eyes. Max looked first at me, then at Emily, bewildered.
Dads just tired, love, Emily intervened, let me finish.
He nodded, but kept his distance. In his eyes there was caution, as if my presence had become something fragile and unpredictable.
We stopped arguing over the dishes or slamming doors. Hours later we would hug and laugh at our silliness. Now Emily merely sighed and washed the plates in silence. Her patience seemed like the unflinching, merciless watchfulness of a prison guardperfect yet crushing.
I kept waiting for her to snap, to shout When will this end? or to break down from helplessness. That would at least tell me she was still here, in the same boat, even if it was halffilled with water. She held on, and that terrified me more than anything else.
One evening, after I asked for the fifth time in an hour whether Id turned off the iron, Emily finally broke her silence.
No, I wont shout, she said, looking past me. Im so tired, George, Im scared Ill fall asleep at the wheel taking Max to school.
There was no accusation, only a stark statement of fact. Its plainness made my anguish swell even more.
At some point I decided to record everything about Emily, lest I forget.
Next to buy a loaf of sourdough I wrote notes like:
Emily laughs, throwing her head back, when something truly amuses her.
She has a tiny starshaped mole on her left clavicle, which she covers up.
When shes exhausted she wrinkles her nose, even in sleep.
She loves coffee with a dash of cinnamon.
She cherishes her old, faded cardigan.
I collected these fragments like a drowning sailor snatches floating debris, fearing that soon Id forget not just the way home but why this house was home at all, why I loved her. In that fear she could become nothing more than a caregiver.
She discovered the notebook one day when I left it on the kitchen table. She flipped through, read about her laugh, the mole, the furrowed nose, and tears fellnot from fatigue but from a sharp, unbearable recognition.
For the first time in months she didnt cry out of desperation; she cried because she saw herself, truly, in my words.
That night she didnt reheat dinner. She took my handnot the clinical grip shed used on the way to the doctor, but a tentative, trembling oneand said, Lets go to that pizza place we went to after our first date. If you remember, what did you order?
I looked at her, and in my eyes, clouded by fear and pills, a spark flickerednot of memory, but of something else.
Ham and mushrooms, I whispered. And youvegetarian with pineapple. You said it was exotic.
She squeezed my hand and nodded, unable to speak.
It wasnt a cure. The disease was still there. Tomorrow I might forget how to tie my shoes. Max might drift away again. Emily might break.
But that evening, at a noisy, neonlit pizza joint that was nothing like the cosy little place we remembered, I fumbled through the menu. The Ham & Mushroom pie was listed under a different name. I hesitated.
Order whatever you want now, Emily said softly, her voice free of irritation, full of understanding.
I pointed at the first picture that caught my eye. She ordered the vegetarian. When the pizzas arrived, I took a bite, chewed, and stopped.
Its not right, I muttered. Its not the same.
The flavour? she asked.
No. I I cant recall the taste, I said, laying the slice back down, a look of lost desperation crossing my face.
It wasnt the toppings that hurt; it was the memory of that first datesweet, warm, the smell of yeast, the hopethat had slipped away. All that remained was a vague note in my notebook: We were there. We were happy.
I pushed the plate away.
Lets just sit, I suggested, for the first time in months not as a patient pleading, but as an equal asking to be near someone.
Emily placed her hand gently over mine, not gripping, just touching.
That changed everything, and yet nothing changed. The fridge calendar stayed, the pill organiser stayed. But now, before handing me my morning tablets, Emily asked, Did you sleep well? Any headache? She asked as a wife, not as a nurse.
I answered, Strange dreams. Like being in a glass houserooms everywhere, but no doors. She listened, nodded, and in those moments the illness ceased to be a hidden enemy; it became a heavy, shared burden we bore together.
Max became our barometer. He noticed when Emily didnt flinch at my lapses. He no longer grew angry at me for forgetting, but simply asked, Can you remind me? without any hint of contempt. One day he drew a picture of the three of us holding hands under a shining sun, captioned, My family. Were strong. I pinned it above the medication chart.
The disease never vanished. It lurked, retreating to give false hope, then striking where we least expected. One morning I woke and didnt recognise Emily. She lay beside me, her face a stranger. Panic rose in my throat, my breath shallow. She looked at me, saw the wildness in my eyes, and understood.
Her heart sank, but there was no screamonly a deep, exhausted sorrow.
George, she said quietly, staying still so as not to scare me further. Its me. Im your wife.
I was silent, breathing shallowly.
You have a note in your notebook, she continued, her tone even, like someone speaking to a frightened animal. About the star-shaped mole. Do you want me to show it?
I nodded slowly. She lifted her shirt, revealed the tiny mark on her clavicle. I stared at it, then at the notebook lying on the nightstand, comparing the two. The fog in my mind cleared a little, replaced by shame and a helpless grief that made her turn away.
Sorry, I whispered hoarsely. Im sorry
Dont, she interrupted, still not meeting my gaze. Just just lie down. Its all right.
She rose, made coffee, her hands trembling. It wasnt all right. It was a new level of lossforgetting her face, forgetting the love that had defined my life. Their uneasy truce, our tender evenings, were not remission; they were only a brief respite in a long, descending spiral.
When she returned with two mugs, I was scribbling furiously in the notebook.
What are you writing? she asked, placing the coffee on the bedside table.
I showed her the cramped lines:
Morning. Woke up. Scared. Saw the star on her clavicle. Recognised. Its Emily. My beloved. Remember at any cost.
I hadnt written wife; I wrote beloved. Emily took a sip of the scalding coffee, trying to chase the lump from her throat. Tears were useless. Anger was useless.
All that remained were my desperate notes and her silent presence beside me.
She sat down, rested her shoulder against mine.
The coffee will cool, she said simply.
I, still pale and shaking, nodded, lifted my mug, and clasped her hand, searching for warmth, for a tether to reality.
There will be many more mornings like thislosses both small and large. The notebook may soon stop helping. Max may grow up remembering a father who faded piece by piece. Emily may reach her breaking point.
But in that sunrise, light spilling over the crooked lines in my notebook, we were together. Not in a past that slipped away, nor in a future that frightened us, but in the presentfragile, broken, imperfect. That is all we have left.
*Lesson learned: when memory betrays you, the act of rememberinghowever smallbecomes an act of love, and love is the only thing that can anchor you when everything else drifts away.*
