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By D.G. Martin

Editor’s Note: This repeat column was first published in 1998.

Why would two news articles about Alzheimer’s have such an impact on me right now?

One reported the closing of the Alzheimer’s office in Winston-Salem. The loss of this service office was apparently due to financial reasons. It’s tough to raise enough money to support the good work so many people are doing.

Another article described and gave examples of a new mental test that can make a very reliable preliminary diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s.

I tried every question of the test. I will tell you why in a minute.

My family has a long interest in this disease. It slowly robs its victims of their ability to remember and to reason. Then it takes their personalities and slowly steals their lives away.

My father was a victim. My mother spent the last part of her life comforting the families of victims, organizing support groups, and raising money to find the causes of Alzheimer’s.

My son’s new fiancée works for the Alzheimer’s Association chapter in Charlotte. They met while he was working there as a volunteer.

But there is more to it – more that explains why these articles about Alzheimer’s stopped me in my tracks.

It was just 30 years ago that my father learned that he was afflicted with early onset Alzheimer’s. A successful college president, widely admired and loved, he had seemed happy and ready for several years of additional service.

It never seemed quite fair.

But, of course, death almost never seems fair.

Now, why did I try all the questions on the test – the one that makes the preliminary check for Alzheimer’s? Well, we all worry sometimes, don’t we? We worry about losing little bits of memory and wonder if perhaps, God forbid, it might be Alzheimer’s?

I worry, too, but then I think about my dad, and it is more than worry.

I am just the age as my dad was when he found out about his Alzheimer’s.

So I think about it more. It is not so much a worry about losing my memory. If fact, I did well on the test questions. Instead, I mourn the loss of what my father would have taught me had he been spared.

My father’s life was full of monuments for me. He showed me how to live and serve with grace and honor. His example has been a good one – and a useful one – all the way to this time, to this age.

Now I ask myself, “Who teaches me how to live the rest of my life? Whose example do I follow now?”

I miss not knowing how he would deal with all the things that life brings in late middle age and in retirement years. And now, at the time he would be dead or facing the possibility of death had he not been struck down, I miss most of all not knowing how he would have faced his own death.

You see, Alzheimer’s stole not just his life. It stole his ability to face death and deal with it.

I wish I had his example. I think it would have been a good one. But I will never know.

Meanwhile, I watch and learn from others.

Terry Sanford, for instance. Our former governor and senator took a diagnosis of “inoperable cancer” and turned it into a challenge to live to the fullest. He figured out new ways to persuade people to support good causes. He seemed to be telling us, “I am going to live a lot longer than you might think, but however long it is, it is going to be good.”

I like that example.

When the time comes, I hope I can follow it.

And, if I do, I know that my dad would be proud.

D.G. Martin, a lawyer, served as UNC-System’s vice president for public affairs and hosted PBS-NC’s North Carolina Bookwatch.

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