We’ve been very lucky in that the progression of Jim’s decline has been slow and steady. With only a few little hills and valleys to keep me on my toes. We’d go weeks without incident and then we have three or four days where his memory seemed to have powered down but then he’d be back to normal and the dip in memory forgotten.

Over the rest of 2017 and into 2018, there was little change in his cognitive ability. His short term memory grew worse but it didn’t interfere with his routines. He was still driving. His muscle memory and instincts were superb. He had a schedule, he was out every day to the gym or to the mall to have a coffee and walk around.

There were a few little hiccups here and there, like the day he was making chili and we’d bought a family sized pack of ground beef – half to use and half to freeze for later. He called me over to the kitchen to ask me to take the leftover meat to the freezer. He handed me a bundle that was loosely wrapped in tinfoil… I mean the ground beef was oozing out between the open seams as if the tinfoil was a taco shell.

I was completely gobsmacked. I’m sure I stood there in shock for several seconds before I could think of something to say that wouldn’t let on how freaked out I was. This wasn’t just an uncompleted task, this was a moment from way out in left field. We have never, ever wrapped something in tinfoil to freeze. Our freezer bags were kept inches away from the roll of foil. There were plenty of physical triggers to prompt him to ‘do it right’.

I finally reached up into the cupboard and pulled out a freezer bag. I put the ground beef, tinfoil and all, into the bag and sealed it shut.

Jim asked me why I was putting the hamburger in a bag. Luckily, I thought of a fast excuse and told him I needed to write the date on the package. I grabbed the sharpie from beside the bags, wrote on the label, took the meat downstairs to the freezer and proceeded to bawl my eyes out.