Goodbye, Vitamin

by Rachel Khong

In diagnosing Alzheimer’s, doctors can only tell you everything that it isn’t.

The trouble with beginnings is that there’s no such thing. What’s a beginning but an arbitrary point of entry? You begin when you’re born, I guess, but it’s not like you know anything about that.

But now it occurs to me that maybe these old men have maladies—diseases that affect their manners—and should be pardoned.

What imperfect carriers of love we are, and what imperfect givers. That the reasons we can care for one another

can have nothing to do with the person cared for. That it has only to do with who we were around that person—what we felt about that person. Here’s the fear: she gave to us, and we took from her, until she disappeared.

I like also that having a terrible day pretty much guarantees that the next day will be much, much better.