My daughter wrote the following about my mom's fight with Alzheimer's. Sorry it's so long, I just wanted to share it with others living with this dreadful disease.

The disease has been waging war on her brain for well over six years. It has coiled its tentacles around and through each lobe, quietly stealing away her memory and reason. With its cold, calculated maneuvers, it has sought to deconstruct her completely...and it is beginning to accomplish its goal.

She looks up with nearly blank eyes that once twinkled with an overwhelming sweetness. Those eyes now search frantically for something - anything that feels like a real moment; anything that feels like a real memory.

Where once spread a smile that conveyed such a warm beauty, she now smiles the saddest smile one can imagine - the smile of frenzied desperation; desperation and fickle hope that this simple physical expression will manifest into reality, and she will have a moment of real happiness again.

Carefully rouged and powdered cheeks are now replaced by tired skin, sallowed and drawn from worry.

Perfectly painted lips are now replaced by a constant grimace of confusion.

The beautiful voice that once sang hymns in praise of her God now waivers with her age and despair.

The hands that have raised and nurtured five offspring and have lovingly taken care of a tidy home now shake and clasp in anxiety.

With her eyes and her voice and her small hands, she searches. She searches to find her way back from the painful past in which she is perpetually trapped. She searches in desperate attempts to determine where “now” truly lies. Her eyes strain to see beyond sight for a path back home through the abysses of time and space.

As she looks to me for answers, she seems less like my grandmother and more like a frightened child wanting the comfort of her mother's arms. I steel myself against the sadness at seeing her appear so small, for I must be her rock. I must be an oak under which she can seek shelter from this tumultuous storm of emotion and sickness. I fasten myself to the very core of the earth so that I may become the ground upon which she can walk in safety through her dark shadows.

Her maelstrom of confusion is punctuated by brief moments of lucidity. The secrets are housed deep within where even she cannot always find them. But when I bend low to hug her, our gazes meet, and I see the spark of recognition in her eyes, far back behind the foggy glaze of time. From that distant place, she looks right into me; right into my core, and she knows I am of her own blood.

Now it is night. I lie beside her as she sleeps silently, and I cannot help but wonder where she goes in dreams. Is she happy? I close my eyes and imagine her as I remember when she was still truly my granny. As I drift off, we are outside in a summer garden. I am young, and I am dancing, and she is smiling at me. We are back in a time where she still calls me “Sugar” and tells me not to get too far from the house. I tell her I will never go too far away, and her carefully rouged and powdered cheeks spread into a smile of such warm beauty. Her eyes twinkle with an overwhelming sweetness as her perfectly painted lips form the words; as her beautiful voice sings songs in praise of her God. Her hands are strong and sure as she lifts me up…and she can remember everything.