My wife, Mary, was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s at the young age of fifty-nine. Don’t Forget to Dance is a memoir of our journey related to this debilitating disease and how, together, we overcame unforeseen and bizarre complications in unique ways. Since some of her relatives had Alzheimer’s, Mary knew she might get the disease, so she consciously prepared her heart, mind and spirit for the possibility years before any problems surfaced. Still, the diagnosis was devastating and then two years later, she started to not only display many fears, delusions, and hallucinations that often accompany Alzheimer’s—but she also exhibited multiple distinct personalities. She thought children were being tortured behind our closet wall, and she started believing I was beating her every day and had been all her life. The problems escalated. Several times while I was driving, she started yelling at me, telling me I was going the wrong way and tried to jump out of the car.

The book presents these horrific times in our journey and how we handled them, but it’s also a love story, showing how a supportive and even happy relationship can be fostered during such dire circumstances. I believe my memoir—heart-warming, heart-wrenching, humorous—will help people dealing with Alzheimer’s to have a more positive and hopeful mindset and will remind readers that no matter what life throws at us, we can still be happy if we don’t forget to “dance.”