After reading an article about the devastating costs on families who have loved ones with Alzheimer’s, my thoughts turned to a close friend. Once a bright, energetic, intelligent woman, she is now in the deep stages of that debilitating disease at the age of 76. Though I’m not burdened with the cost of her care, my heart is heavy just knowing what this has done to her.

We both lived in the same apartment complex, and though she was still working, I always got a call when she got home. On Saturday mornings, we’d get together for coffee and chit chat. She had a quick wit, and we’d end up laughing at our experiences during the week.

About three years ago, I started noticing small changes when she’d come over. She had a different demeanor. She stopped calling every day, and she’d forget appointments.

Then one Saturday, she and her daughter went to San Francisco for a day of shopping and sightseeing. Around 9 p.m. that night, there was a knock on my door. I opened it and saw her standing there looking like a lost soul.

I had her sit down on the couch and asked her what was wrong. She said they’d changed the lock on her apartment door, and she couldn’t get in. I knew that couldn’t be true. After she calmed down, I walked her home. The door opened just fine. She had gone to an apartment just across from hers.

I called her daughter the next morning, and she said my friend had seemed fine during their trip. She did say, however, that she and her husband had been noticing that she wasn’t remembering things as she once did, but they attributed it to growing older, which I fully understood.

When it became evident that something was very wrong, her daughter took her to the doctor. He diagnosed it as the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s. He gave her some medication, and she seemed to do much better. She even continued to work, but within a few months she had to quit.

She eventually gave up her apartment and moved in with her son and daughter-in-law. I brought her over to my apartment a few times, and every so often we would go to lunch with a couple of friends. She seemed to enjoy them and even joined in on our conversations, but at our last get together she seemed indifferent and unaware.

They eventually had to move her into a care facility when she began wandering outside during the day and roaming through the house at night. She became unable to do almost anything for herself.

Though I do keep in touch with her family, I haven’t seen her in a month. I often feel guilty about it, but she doesn’t even know me. She can’t visit with me, and it just breaks my heart to see her this way. I want to remember her as she was … not as she is. In my heart, I truly believe she would understand.