JUNE 2005
Alice sat at her computer waiting for the screen to come to life. Cathy had just called, checking in, concerned. She said that Alice hadn’t returned her emails in a while, that she hadn’t been to the dementia chat room in weeks, and that she’d missed support group again yesterday. It wasn’t until Cathy talked about support group that Alice knew who the concerned Cathy on the phone was. Cathy said that two new people had joined their support group, and that it had been recommended to them by people who’d attended the Dementia Care Conference and had heard Alice’s speech. Alice told her that was wonderful news. She apologized to Cathy for worrying her and told her to let everyone know that she was okay.
But to tell the truth, she was very far from okay. She could still read and comprehend small amounts of text, but the computer keyboard had become an undecipherable jumble of letters. In truth, she’d lost the ability to compose words out of the alphabet letters on the keys. Her ability to use language, that thing that most separates humans from animals, was leaving her, and she was feeling less and less human as it departed. She’d said a tearful good-bye to okay some time ago.
She clicked on her mailbox. Seventy-three new emails. Overwhelmed and powerless to respond, she closed out of her email application without opening anything. She stared at the screen she’d spent much of her professional life in front of. Three folders sat on the desktop arranged in a vertical row: “Hard Drive,” “Alice,” “Butterfly.” She clicked on the “Alice” folder.
Inside were more folders with different titles: “Abstracts,” “Administrative,” “Classes,” “Conferences,” “Figures,” “Grant Proposals,” “Home,” “John,” “Kids,” “Lunch Seminars,” “Molecules to Mind,” “Papers,” “Presentations,” “Students.” Her entire life organized into neat little icons. She couldn’t bear to look inside, afraid she wouldn’t remember or understand her entire life. She clicked on “Butterfly” instead.
Dear Alice,
You wrote this letter to yourself when you were of sound mind. If you are reading this, and you are unable to answer one or more of the following questions, then you are no longer of sound mind:
- 1. What month is it?
- 2. Where do you live?
- 3. Where is your office?
- 4. When is Anna’s birthday?
- 5. How many children do you have?
You have Alzheimer’s disease. You have lost too much of yourself, too much of what you love, and you are not living the life you want to live. There is no good outcome to this disease, but you have chosen an outcome that is the most dignified, fair, and respectful to you and your family. You can no longer trust your own judgment, but you can trust mine, your former self, you before Alzheimer’s took too much of you away.
You lived an extraordinary and worthwhile life. You and your husband, John, have three healthy and amazing children, who are all loved and doing well in the world, and you had a remarkable career at Harvard filled with challenge, creativity, passion, and accomplishment.
This last part of your life, the part with Alzheimer’s, and this end that you’ve carefully chosen, is tragic, but you did not live a tragic life. I love you, and I’m proud of you, of how you’ve lived and all that you’ve done while you could.
Now, go to your bedroom. Go to the black table next to the bed, the one with the blue lamp on it. Open the drawer to that table. In the back of the drawer is a bottle of pills. The bottle has a white label on it that says FOR ALICE in black letters. There are a lot of pills in that bottle. Swallow all of them with a big glass of water. Make sure you swallow all of them. Then, get in the bed and go to sleep.
Go now, before you forget. And do not tell anyone what you’re doing. Please trust me.
Love,
Alice Howland
She read it again. She didn’t remember writing it. She didn’t know the answers to any of the questions but the one asking the number of children she had. But then, she probably knew that because she’d provided the answer in the letter. She couldn’t be sure of their names. Anna and Charlie, maybe. She couldn’t remember the other one.
She read it again, more slowly this time, if that was even possible. Reading on a computer screen was difficult, more difficult than reading on paper, where she could use a pen and highlighter. And paper she could take with her to her bedroom and read it there. She wanted to print it out but couldn’t figure out how to make that happen. She wished her former self, she before Alzheimer’s took too much of her away, had known to include instructions for printing it out.
She read it again. It was fascinating and surreal, like reading a diary that had been hers when she was a teenager, secret and heartfelt words written by a girl she only vaguely remembered. She wished she’d written more. Her words made her feel sad and proud, powerful and relieved. She took a deep breath, exhaled, and went upstairs.
She got to the top of the stairs and forgot what she had gone up there to do. It carried a sense of importance and urgency, but nothing else. She went back downstairs and looked for evidence of where she’d just been. She found the computer on with a letter to her displayed on the screen. She read it and went back upstairs.
She opened the drawer in a table next to the bed. She pulled out packets of tissues, pens, a stack of sticky paper, a bottle of lotion, a couple of cough candies, dental floss, and some coins. She spread everything out on the bed and touched each item, one at a time. Tissues, pen, pen, pen, sticky paper, coins, candy, candy, floss, lotion.
“Alice?”
“What?”
She spun around. John stood in the doorway.
“What are you doing up here?” he asked.
She looked at the items on the bed.
“Looking for something.”
“I have to run back to the office to pick up a paper I forgot. I’m going to drive, so I’ll only be gone for a few minutes.”
“Okay.”
“Here, it’s time, take these before I forget.”
He handed her a glass of water and a handful of pills. She swallowed each one.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome. I’ll be right back.”
He took the empty glass from her and left the room. She lay down on the bed next to the former contents of the drawer and closed her eyes, feeling sad and proud, powerful and relieved as she waited.
“ALICE, PLEASE, PUT YOUR ROBE, hood, and cap on, we need to leave.”
“Where are we going?” asked Alice.
“Harvard Commencement.”
She inspected the costume again. She still didn’t get it.
“What does commencement mean?”
“It’s Harvard graduation day. Commencement means beginning.”
Commencement. Graduation from Harvard. A beginning. She turned the word over in her mind. Graduation from Harvard marked a beginning, the beginning of adulthood, the beginning of professional life, the beginning of life after Harvard. Commencement. She liked the word and wanted to remember it.
They walked along a busy sidewalk wearing their dark pink costumes and plush black hats. She felt conspicuously ridiculous and entirely untrusting of John’s wardrobe decision for the first several minutes of their walk. Then, suddenly, they were everywhere. Masses of people in similar costumes and hats but in a variety of colors funneled from every direction onto the sidewalk with them, and soon they were all walking in a rainbow costume parade.
They entered a grassy yard shaded by big, old trees and surrounded by big, old buildings to the slow, ceremonial sounds of bagpipes. Alice shivered with goose bumps. I’ve done this before. The procession led them to a row of chairs where they sat down.
“This is Harvard graduation,” said Alice.
“Yes,” said John.
“Commencement.”
“Yes.”
After some time, the speakers began. Harvard graduations past had featured many famous and powerful people, mostly political leaders.
“The king of Spain spoke here one year,” said Alice.
“Yes,” said John. He laughed a little, amused.
“Who is this man?” asked Alice, referring to the man at the podium.
“He’s an actor,” said John.
Now, Alice laughed, amused.
“I guess they couldn’t get a king this year,” said Alice.
“You know, your daughter is an actress. She could be up there someday,” said John.
Alice listened to the actor. He was an easy and dynamic speaker. He kept talking about a picaresque.
“What’s a picaresque?” asked Alice.
“It’s a long adventure that teaches the hero lessons.”
The actor talked about his life’s adventure. He told them he was here today to pass on to them, the graduating classes, the people about to begin their own picaresques, the lessons he’d learned along his way. He gave them five: Be creative, be useful, be practical, be generous, and finish big.
I’ve been all those things, I think. Except, I haven’t finished yet. I haven’t finished big.
“That’s good advice,” said Alice.
“Yes, it is,” said John.
They sat and listened and clapped and listened and clapped for longer than Alice cared to. Then, everyone stood and walked slowly in a less orderly parade. Alice and John and some of the others entered a nearby building. The magnificent entryway, with its staggeringly high, dark wooden ceiling and towering wall of sunlit stained glass, awed Alice. Huge, old, and heavy-looking chandeliers loomed over them.
“What is this?” asked Alice.
“This is Memorial Hall, it’s part of Harvard.”
To her disappointment, they spent no time in the magnificent entryway and moved immediately into a smaller, relatively unimpressive theater room, where they sat down.
“What’s happening now?” asked Alice.
“The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences students are getting their Ph.D.s. We’re here to see Dan graduate. He’s your student.”
She looked around the room at the faces of the people in the dark pink costumes. She didn’t know which one was Dan. She didn’t, in fact, recognize any of the faces, but she did recognize the emotion and the energy in the room. They were happy and hopeful, proud and relieved. They were ready and eager for new challenges, to discover and create and teach, to be the heroes in their own adventures.
What she saw in them, she recognized in herself. This was something she knew, this place, this excitement and readiness, this beginning. This had been the beginning of her adventure, too, and although she couldn’t remember the details, she had an implicit knowing that it had been rich and worthwhile.
“There he is, on the stage,” said John.
“Who?”
“Dan, your student.”
“Which one?”
“The blond.”
“Daniel Maloney,” someone announced.
Dan stepped forward and shook hands with the man on the stage in exchange for a red folder. Dan then raised the red folder high over his head and smiled in glorious victory. For his joy, for all that he had surely achieved to be here, for the adventure that he would embark upon, Alice applauded him, this student of hers whom she had no memory of.
ALICE AND JOHN STOOD OUTSIDE under a big white tent among the students in dark pink costumes and the people who were happy for them and waited. A young, blond man approached Alice, grinning broadly. Unhesitating, he hugged her and kissed her on the cheek.
“I’m Dan Maloney, your student.”
“Congratulations, Dan, I’m so happy for you,” said Alice.
“Thank you so much. I’m so glad you were able to come and see me graduate. I feel so lucky to have been your student. I want you to know, you were the reason I chose linguistics as my field of study. Your passion for understanding how language works, your rigorous and collaborative approach to research, your love of teaching, you’ve inspired me in so many ways. Thank you for all your guidance and wisdom, for setting the bar so much higher than I thought I could reach, and for giving me plenty of room to run with my own ideas. You’ve been the best teacher I’ve ever had. If I achieve in my life a fraction of what you’ve accomplished in yours, I’ll consider my life a success.”
“You’re welcome. Thank you for saying that. You know, I don’t remember so well these days. I’m glad to know that you’ll remember these things about me.”
He handed her a white envelope.
“Here, I wrote it all down for you, everything I just said, so you can read it whenever you want and know what you gave to me even if you can’t remember.”
“Thank you.”
They each held their envelopes, hers white and his red, with deep pride and reverence.
An older, heavier version of Dan and two women, one much older than the other, came over to them. The older, heavier version of Dan carried a tray of bubbly white wine in skinny glasses. The young woman handed a glass to each of them.
“To Dan,” said the older, heavier version of Dan, holding up his glass.
“To Dan,” said everyone, clinking the skinny glasses and taking sips.
“To auspicious beginnings,” added Alice, “and finishing big.”
THEY BEGAN WALKING AWAY FROM the tents and the old, brick buildings and the people in costumes and hats to where it was less populated and noisy. Someone in a black costume yelled and ran over to John. John stopped and let go of Alice’s hand to shake hands with the person who’d yelled. Caught in her own forward momentum, Alice kept walking.
For a stretched-out second, Alice paused and made eye contact with a woman. She was sure she didn’t know the woman, but there was meaning in the exchange. The woman had blond hair, a phone by her ear, and glasses over her big, blue, startled eyes. The woman was driving in a car.
Then, Alice’s hood pulled suddenly tight around her throat, and she was jerked backward. She landed hard and unsuspecting on her back and banged her head on the ground. Her costume and plush hat offered little protection against the pavement.
“I’m sorry, Ali, are you okay?” asked a man in a dark pink robe, kneeling beside her.
“No,” she said, sitting up and rubbing the back of her head. She expected to see blood on her hand but didn’t.
“I’m sorry, you walked right into the street. That car almost hit you.”
“Is she okay?”
It was the woman from the car, her eyes still big and startled.
“I think so,” said the man.
“Oh my god, I could’ve killed her. If you didn’t pull her out of the way, I might’ve killed her.”
“It’s okay, you didn’t kill her, I think she’s okay.”
The man helped Alice stand. He felt and looked at her head.
“I think you’re all right. You’re probably going to be really sore. Can you walk?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Can I give you a ride somewhere?” asked the woman.
“No, no, that’s all right, we’re fine,” said the man.
He put his arm around Alice’s waist and his hand under her elbow, and she walked home with the kind stranger who had saved her life.