On faculty at one of the universities where I served was a remarkable woman.  We were not in the same department so my early view of her work and her being was from a distance; but I did hear stories about her from students she taught.  The stories were not about her being a genius or a particularly good teacher.  What she was known for was her interest and concern for her students.

 

As time went along we did serve on committees together.  While we never became friends it would not be wrong to say that I knew her work and many of her attitudes.  Consistently she spoke on behalf of what she considered to be the best interests of students.  It seemed to me that there were times when she put herself in jeopardy in order to defend a student’s work that was in question.  Sometimes I was annoyed that she would appear to be more student-directed than faculty-oriented, but she was predictable and serious.

 

Eventually I learned that she had no children and that her life away from the university was narrow and limited.  The backdrop for that was she came to every meeting, reception, dinner, or any other event to which the rest of us were invited but often only chose to attend when we felt some obligation.  Like the rest of us, she aged in her position and soon became senior faculty who received many of the rewards that come to a person who has given so much to an institution.

 

As the years passed, my contact with her faded.  The institution grew and we all became specialized in our research and teaching.  We exchanged greetings when we met but there was little reason for us to have any professional dialogue and we did not.  I heard stories from her colleagues that she had become forgetful, missed classes she was to teach, and sometimes seemed confused and lost.  Among younger faculty she became something of a joke as she continued in her faculty role albeit with some form of dementia.  It was clear that her brain was under assault and she was beginning to withdraw from who she was to become someone quite different.

 

One evening while having dinner at a downtown restaurant, I happened to look out of a window that faced our table to see her going through a dumpster as though she had lost something in it.  Before I could get my bearings as to what was happening she was gone.  I hoped that I had mistakenly identified her.

 

As it happened, others had seen her doing the same thing in other parts of town.  Now, at campus functions, she came to fill her plate with food along with a paper sack that she carried in her purse.  She repeated lectures several times a semester, wore the same clothes for days, and was known as a crazy old lady.  Her friends seemed paralyzed and the administration feared becoming involved with her problems but urged her to retire and go home.

 

I offer you this story not to show the inadequacy of a professional faculty whose members could have been loving and helpful to this woman rather than, in some cases, distancing themselves from her in order not to be identified with her.  In other cases, people wanted to do something but had no idea what they could do.  There is certainly a cultural story to be told here.

 

My reason for telling you this story is not to display the social failures of a group of professional people.  It could be, but it isn’t.  Rather, it is to remind you that when you hear statistics about the numbers of men and women who are afflicted by all forms of dementia, you must remember that each case among the statistical analysis is a human being who lived a life and had no idea that his/her brain would eventually fail and the person who s/he had been would disappear to leave behind only remnants of who s/he had been.

 

The woman I described had laughed, danced, told jokes, and did all she could to support her (our) students.  And then she was gone.

 

President Reagan’s wife, Nancy, calls the life after Alzheimer’s the long good bye.  All of us who treat the brain, or study it, or teach it, need to remind ourselves every day of how fragile the brain is.  Like a beautiful rose, it may bloom in all of its splendor,  shrivel and dry before it finally dies.

 

As professionals we must support efforts to understand how the brain develops and ask if there are things that can be done early in life to, at least, postpone these disasters.  When you are teaching fresh young faces, remember that a culture is remembered by how a whole life is lived.  What we teach today and how we behave may be represented later in life in very positive ways.