Alice Howland, a Harvard professor of psycholinguistics, whose splendid cognitive abilities could awe anybody, had everything that could ensure a happy life. The biggest thing which troubled her was frequent memory lapses. After a conference during which she forgot a word and an incident with her organizer in a restaurant, she started really worrying. The lapses escalated after her 50th birthday.
When Alice was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, she was crushed. Afraid to tell her husband, John, and their three children, Anna, Tom and Lydia, she decided to keep her situation a secret. When she reviled it to her family, they couldn’t believe her. Only Lydia didn’t hesitate, for she sensed the truth. Anna and Tom decided to take a test in order to find out whether they had that gene. Anna’s results proved that she inherited it and this saddened Alice even more. She was afraid that her grandchildren might also have it.
Being a cancer cell biologist, John refused to believe what Alice was ill and tried to prove that diagnose was wrong. Then, when it was impossible to ignore it or argue with it, he tried to find new methods of curing. Alice had to finish her career at Harvard after receiving low grades for her teaching performance. That was a rather big tragedy for her, for she had spent 25 years of her life there. Later on, she organized the support group for people like her, who suffer from early dementia.
Her mental abilities declined greatly and her past was almost fully erased from her memory. She started confusing names of her children or forgetting about them at all. There were also moments when her mind clarified. When Anna gave birth to twins, Alice understood that those babies were her grandchildren. John couldn’t bring himself to see the mental decline of his wife, so he accepted the position in New York. Alice stayed at Harvard; however, she was not alone. She was loved and cared about by her children.
