MY MOTHER-IN-LAW turned 82 last fall. Like more than 6 million people in the U.S. and around 40 million people worldwide, she has dementia. And like many people living with this debilitating progressive brain disease, she doesn’t know she has it.

On her birthday, I asked her how old she was, and she said, “62, right?” She will not remember Easter or Mother’s Day, and she probably won’t be able to read this article. When she became a grandmother 23 years ago with the birth of our son, she asked to be called Nana. Since she cannot fully consent to being mentioned in this article, I will call her Nana, and pray that the blessing she gave me years ago to write and keep on writing holds even now. She broke her hip and wrist this January and has transitioned to a nursing home. Yet her “walk with the Lord,” as she calls it, continues, even as she struggles to put one foot in front of the other.