When I entered the room, his face lit up with a smile. I pulled up a chair and he took out photos of himself in his twenties, with his muscular body, black hair greased and slicked back, which was stylish in the 1940s. He found a snapshot of his wife in her twenties, a slender, attractive dancer. He talked about finding a job when he got out of the Army, and some of the jerks he had as bosses. We talked for hours. Although he never mentioned it, I wondered if he was lonely. Sometimes he would wince, and tears would come to his eyes from the pain in his knees. He could barely walk and was mostly confined to his armchair. There was nothing I could do to help ease his pain—he was not even my patient. She was.

sitting beside him 
her eyes vacant and glassy 
Alzheimer’s 

Bio: Stephen W. Leslie