It’s curious, but sometimes Joan will come up to me and say something that might seem to make no sense. But it makes perfect sense to me, we always know what the other is talking about.

Joan has a lot of humor and warmth and love in her eyes. She comes to Bingo every Friday and one of us sits with her and fills in her board. She no longer has any idea what Bingo is or how it works,  and her eyesight is failing her and she can’t read the numbers on the table.

But she loves the game, and she surely knows when she is a winner. She lights up and claps her hands. Lately, she and I have been singing together.

I am publishing this series of photos of Joan in honor of those who have lost their memories and much of their identity.

Life is a struggle for them, and many cannot handle it with Joan’s grace and good humor and cheerfulness. Joan loves life, today she listened, for the first time, to the Beatles on her new CD player, a gift from the Army Of Good.

You can support my work with Joan and the the other Mansion residents by helping me rebuild my Mansion account, it was low and is climbing up, thanks to the wonderful donations that are beginning to pop up in my Post Office Box. The $5 bills crumpled up in those envelopes touched me deeply.

So many people struggle, so many remain generous and open-hearted.

Memory is precious, we can take it for granted. It breaks my heart sometimes to see Joanie  struggling to understand where she is and what has happened to her life.  She always finds a place of love and laughter, that is an inspiration to me.

If you wish, you can contribute to this work in any amount by sending a payment to me, Jon Katz, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. Or via Paypal, [email protected]. Please mark  you donations for “The Mansion” or the Sakler Moo’s school fund, or the
“Soccer  Team.” All the money will go where it is supposed to go.

New federal banking regulations require that the checks must have the person cashing the check on the top line, the “payable to” line. So please make them out to me and say where you want them to go.