September 13 on ESPN was mine “Rhapsody moment.” Talking about my mother, who has Alzheimer’s, on national television for the first time was cathartic. It was also directly inspired by the North Carolina MC and her song “Loose rocks”, which deals with dementia, a form of Alzheimer’s disease.

Rhapsody said that “(allowing) myself to be human” was a brand new, out-of-body experience on her deeply personal recent album, y. But the quaver in her voice on this song was all too familiar.

“,” she told her Aunt Dale, whom she calls her “second mother” in the song.

“I remember when I was myself,” my mother told me last week. “I just don’t know how to be myself.”

As we have fun World Alzheimer’s Day, the emotions expressed in these two quotes are part of my life story.

On “Loose Rocks,” the Snow Hill, North Carolina native peels back the layers of her aunt Dale’s dementia diagnosis. “She raps, ‘In the hundreds of conversations I’ve had with my mother since her diagnosis, this is her greatest fear. She forgets a lot these days, but she doesn’t forget the things she’s most afraid of losing. There will come a day when she doesn’t recognize who I am. When she doesn’t remember everything we’ve been through as a parent and a child. But most importantly, when she doesn’t remember the grandchildren and daughter-in-law she’s always prayed for. It’s hard to know what to say when these conversations come up, and honestly, I haven’t figured it out yet. I don’t know if I ever will, because how do you tell the person in charge of your life that the very essence of who they are won’t be a memory? They’ll never know they ever existed.’”

“Loose Rocks” isn’t an exact replica of my life. But the anger, sadness, and fear expressed in the song are only as palpable. At some point in the past two years, becoming a parent, essentially my mother, became an inevitable part of my life. Paying bills, scheduling doctor’s appointments, filing taxes, talking to lawyers to rearrange wills—it’s hard to assume all of that becoming a component of life. And yet, it’s even harder to assume life without it.

She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s a couple of days before Christmas last 12 months, and symptoms began appearing no less than two years earlier. The consensus I’ve gotten from countless individuals who have reached out to me since this piece is that their family members have lived with the disease for 4 to seven years. How much time do I even have left with my mother? How do I prepare for the emotional burden when it inevitably gets worse? How do I live in a moment after I can’t stop serious about the whole thing? And what did she do to deserve this? These are only a snapshot of the questions that paralyze me day by day.

My mother’s stroke and automotive accident were clear signs. I’ll all the time imagine that the quarantine and the coronavirus pandemic did irreversible damage. She kept saying, “I feel different.” Or, “Something is wrong. I just don’t know what.” A natural extrovert, she was forced into isolation. That isolation modified the woman who raised me. Physically, it’s still there. But looking into her eyes, you may see it is a woman fighting to carry on to the pride that made her who she was — but it surely’s a disease that feeds on itself, emotionally crippling her patients and family members. She can still do some tasks on her own, and her commitment to, as she says, “beating this thing” is inspiring. Her indecision is painful now. Her confidence sometimes ebbs and flows by the hour. We communicate day by day via FaceTime, phone calls, and texts. But seeing her misspelled words, especially after spending her life as a teacher, creates a burden that may’t be ignored. The image of him sitting at the kitchen table practicing writing along with his left hand is burned into my brain. Writing with the “non-active” hand helps with cognitive function, or so the doctors tell us.

My parents divorced in 1988, and from there my mother and I moved to my grandmother’s house in central Virginia. They have lived together ever since. At 93, my grandmother, who resides with breast cancer, is quick to inform me that she doesn’t have one other 93 years ahead of her. She recently returned from the hospital after a gentle stroke that she doesn’t remember. My grandmother continuously jogs my memory about the checking account she arrange that may pay for her funeral and burial costs, and “whatever is left, you’ll make the best decision.”

Like RhapsodyMy father and I never had a relationship. I wore our lack of connection almost like a badge of honor. The feeling was greater than mutual, if he didn’t need a relationship with me. Lately, though, I felt offended and resentful.

My mother all the time tells me she’s afraid of being alone. In the future, I’ll sell the house I grew up in and move her into an assisted living facility. I’m wondering what that may do to her Alzheimer’s. Will it speed it up? Will it slow it down? But the query I ask most frequently is pointless. Why did my father’s actions a long time ago ultimately leave my mother alone in a spot she doesn’t know?

The questions we cannot answer are the most difficult.

2023 study by the University of Exeter and King’s College London examined the impact of the pandemic on the brain health of people over the age of 50. Published in the journal, the study found that older people’s memory deteriorated significantly in the first 12 months of the pandemic (and even after quarantine), regardless of whether or not they had contracted the virus. The study found that cognitive decline was exacerbated by aspects reminiscent of loneliness and depression.

During the pandemic, my mother continuously spoke about how lonely she felt and how often she cried about not having the ability to see her family. As an outgoing and extroverted one who was all the time shuttling between Washington, D.C., Virginia, and wherever her beloved South Carolina State Bulldogs were playing football, the change in lifestyle during the lockdown did irreversible damage to my mother.

The most crippling reality of Alzheimer’s/dementia is the stripping away of an individual’s dignity. The person isn’t who they’re or who they may eventually change into. My mother struggles to take care of the independence she has proudly carried throughout my life. But the effects are visible. In the same conversation where she asks the same query five times in five minutes—like when her next therapist appointment is, or when my daughter’s birthday is so she will write it down on her phone—she may offer you the lyrics to her favorite Luther Vandross song or anything related to her college alumni chapter.

I took her and my son to the Children’s Museum of Richmond this summer. She did nothing but push a stroller while her grandson played with toys, but the joy in her eyes jogged my memory of the woman I’ve all the time loved. As we drove home, she said, “Thank you for making me feel like a real grandma today. I needed this more than you know. I know I won’t get to do it again, so I appreciate it.” That positivity didn’t fade even when she got a phone call a short time later and was told she needed a checkup for her surgery the week before. In that moment, all she wanted was the peace she’d spent years trying to find. Alzheimer’s would eventually rob her of that feeling, but not then. That smile on her face is something I’ll always remember.

What is so bad is how Alzheimer’s takes away time. This stress has affected every part of my life, including marriage and parenting. The conversation with my friend on Wednesday might have been God speaking through her.

“Justin, knowing what I know about your personality, you can’t be everyone’s Superman,” she told me. “You’ll break down and it’ll take years to get back on your feet. You can’t afford that luxury with kids. Or marriage. Because they remember you the way they remember you.”

In a world dominated by Alzheimer’s, being here and now is difficult because I’m clinging to the past. The woman she was once. The relationship we had before all the things turned the other way up. The life she fantasized about but never knew. But it isn’t fair. Not to me, my children, my wife, and even my mother. What matters is the future. I can not lose my mother and family to Alzheimer’s. She would never forgive me for that.

I still have not come to terms together with her diagnosis and there is a likelihood I never will. Her love stays the same, but I see that the disease is already taking away the one one who has known me longer than I even have known myself.

Every day, every hour, with one and all, this type of emotional theft is depressingly fruitful. Money is all the time needed, but somewhere along the way we realize that experiences are the strongest currency. Experiences create memories, and that’s all we will take with us.

It’s hard to say whether “Loose Rocks” will likely be the best song of 2024. But I can say that there probably won’t be a more essential song to me. This song makes me take into consideration what was, what’s now, and what could occur in the next few years. I could never have imagined a world where my mother couldn’t be the grandmother she all the time embodied, and that’s a reality I struggle with each day. In life, we control the things we will control and let all the things else play out the way it does. I can’t control my mother’s Alzheimer’s the same way Rapsody can’t control her aunt’s dementia. “Loose Rocks” isn’t only a painful song. It’s a stupendous song. But it’s also a reminder of responsibility and blessings.

If we’re lucky, we will see our parents get older. Visits mean more, and phone calls change into ornaments that we supply with us for the rest of our lives. Nothing in life is fair or free, because even happiness has its price.