Running to recapture a beloved journey, before dementia takes everything
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When I was little, my father, who rarely traveled, would tell stories of a trip to Europe he took with his parents when he was 14, in 1966. He remembered how Nonie loved the pristine Swiss roads and flowerbeds; the cozy fireplace in the hillside house near Lugano, where her father was born, with its clever alcoves for drying clothes or warming bread; and the palpable poverty in the house in Pozzuoli, near Naples, where Nonie’s aunt had lined the walls with newspaper for insulation. Occasionally, my father would show me his Kodachrome slides on a projector.
As an adult, I often suggested that we repeat the trip, or at least visit Switzerland and Italy, so he could show me his family roots. But as his Alzheimer’s disease progressed, the idea took on a n...