Ice Cream in the Cupboard

EARLY ONSET ALZHEIMER S: A LOVE STORY. It started with strange behavior a hostile outburst here, a peculiar lapse of memory there. Then it became violent. The beautiful, vivacious Carmen Moffett was behaving in ways her husband Pat could not understand. Their marriage had been a long love affair. Together, they raised five beautiful children in Great Neck, New York, and were looking forward to planning their retirement together. Then came the outbursts, both verbal and physical, and the forgetting. Confused and increasingly nervous, Pat consulted doctors, but no one could find anything physically wrong with Carmen. Worse yet, she could not remember doing the things that rattled Pat. Finally, several years later, incidents at Carmen s work forced her to another doctor, Gisele Wolf-Klein, who diagnosed the devastating illness. As she slipped away, Carmen reached out for Pat. He was the one she could remember, even if she did not always know exactly who he was. With remarkable grace and an incredibly strong will, Carmen accepted that she was fading, that she would disappear. But through all of it, she managed to reserve three words for Pat. These three words exemplify the theme of their lives together, to this day.