Composed for the M2 Narrative Medicine Elective following a visit with patients at Ann Arbor’s Turner Senior Resource Center.

As we pass a pair of paintings in the hall – broad strokes of unremarkable landscapes – Anna does a double take. She stops and stares at them, longingly.

“Those look like my own – I’ve painted that same river!”

She turns toward me and gushes, as if to share a secret, even though we just met. “I’ve painted since I was young, and lately my granddaughters started getting into my brushes, so I got them their own. It’s what we do together now! There was this one time, we painted portraits of my neighbor, this delightful young woman and her cocker spaniel…you would love those.”

With the end of her sentence Anna’s eyes wilt into a brief emptiness, and she looks down with embarrassment, the hint of a lost thought. She’s transported someplace else, though her lips remain in their default expression, stretched into an indiscriminate smile, her child’s pose. Seconds later she’s back, and we share a moment of confusion as her eyes search mine, requesting a reminder of our previous direction.

I take her hand and we move down the hallway slowly, because Anna takes small, steady steps. A strip of tape is lobbed over the door jam into the game room so we don’t have to turn the handle; these senior-friendly measures are embedded throughout the center, unannounced but conspicuous.

We take seats in hollow plastic chairs around a plastic faux-wood card table that remind me of kindergarten. I ask her about her earlier life, and our conversation roams from her childhood on a rural Michigan farm, to her own grown up children spread across the states, to her daily medications and morning walks.

As we skip between subjects, Anna’s attention undulates. She likes to make eye contact, but her eyes sometimes glaze and the sincerity in her smile vanishes with, as far as I can tell, no perceptible change in her expression. Her pupils might dilate, or maybe her crow’s feet relieve by a millimeter or two. She’s there and she’s not, in an instant, with no warning.

Anna has a husband, her second, a retired construction foreman who takes good care of her. When she met Al, she didn’t yet know about her Alzheimer’s, but she could sense something was wrong. She laments to me that she will never be fully independent again. She sheepishly admits frustration at the fact that she can no longer navigate her own kitchen. “Al tries to cook, but…oh well you know.”

“I’m happy though, you know? It’s important that I’m happy doing what I like to – or what I can do.” She’s still so cheerful.

The program coordinator knocks and drops her head into the room, slowly drawing the door open to reveal a short man. The prototype of a lumberjack, he appears strong and silent, with a patient aura. “Anna? Al is here to pick you up.”

Her lips collapse into dry folds as she draws a blank frown. “That’s not Al.”

Time stops. The coordinator cringes reflexively, and I’m unsure how to respond, until Anna’s innocent giggles abruptly break the silence.

 “I’m kidding! We were having so much fun, can you just give us a couple minutes more?”

 Anna turns back to me to confide: “He’s an angel. He does so much for me.” She’s light-hearted now, floating.

 “I can see that! It’s wonderful that you have such strong support.”

 “Oh I really am the luckiest. Are you going to visit again next week?”