TRACING MEMORY

Light and Life in the Shadow of Alzheimer’s

Often closeted due to stigma, Alzheimer’s reshapes the lives of those who bear witness to its relentless progression. What’s so chilling about Alzheimer’s: it is not only a corporeal disease. It attacks one’s personality while washing away the millions of memories that have merged and helped shape the “self.”

Sometimes, though, the storm is pierced by moments of joy or dance or unexpected laughter, of words previously unspoken, or wordless connections renewed. Moments of meaning no one would have wanted to miss. Some of those are reflected in these stories from in and around Starr County, Texas.

Starr County, Texas

Fog rolls over the Rio Grande River which separates the U.S. from Mexico, as seen from the bluffs in Roma.

Starr County is a landscape of wind farms and cattle ranches, border police trolling the Rio Grande River, large close-knit families, and stray dogs who will welcome a handout, but preferably from a distance. Hidden just below the surface, it is also home to among the nation’s highest rates of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias.