Unlimited Chocolate

My grandmother, who was essentially the second parent in my life from birth until the time I was 13-years-old, spent the last decade of her life in the dark recesses of Alzheimer's. I wasn't allowed to see her during those last years; my mother did not want my sisters and me to remember "Grandma Mom" as the woman lost in that deep, dementia-filled fog, but, rather, as the woman whose heart was too large to measure, who was always there for her family, no matter the reason, no matter the sacrifice.

The New York Times' Pam Belluck visited the Beatitudes Nursing Home in Phoenix, Arizona, and filed this excellent piece on a new care philosophy being tested at the facility. The approach is heartbreaking in its common sense, yet too many care facilities around the nation won't see the logic.

As Roger Ebert said when he posted this article to his Facebook page, Alzheimer care facilities around the globe should put the following motto above their doors:

Those who live in the moment must be loved in the moment.

Amen, brother.