I’ve been visiting Joan and working with her for well over a year now, and she has taught me so much about the world of the memory-impaired. It is a different world, a challenging world.

Now, she is in yet another world, a rehab center, a new place for  her to understand, a new world to navigate in the special world of the memory impaired. Over the weekend, she fell and broke her hip.

The memory impaired are like the blind, in a way, they cannot always see the world around them, they rely on other senses and gifts to survive and communicate.

I have done important reading work with Joan, she has been able to restore some of her memory and recount the important elements of her life – the murder of her daughter, the death of her husband, her memories of her beloved lake where she grew up.

They are fragmented, and they fade and glow, but are never whole, and never stay for long. Music is a powerful tool when working with Joan, it calms her and soothes her and helps the world make sense.

It is not an easy thing to lose one’s memory, the world often makes no sense, it is sometimes so difficult to know what to say, who the people you know and love are.

It is touching to see how Joan works around loving people but never knowing their names or who they are.

Joan does not yet know my name, or Red’s, yet her recognition of me and affection for me is so obvious.

It is very easy to love Joan, it is not always easy to help her. Talking in rehab, i saw that in one sense, memory loss is a blessing. She did not know that she had fallen and injured herself, she didn’t remember being in the hospital, I don’t really know if she was in little pain, or just didn’t remember any pain.

On the other hand, the world has become confusing for her. She knows the Mansion well, she needs  help finding her room, but has a regular pattern of walks, visits and navigating the dining room and her meals.

She can sit down with me or others and read and focus, but in a few minutes, all memory of the moment is gone.

I think rehab will be difficult for her in one sense – new things to navigate – and easy in another, she will fall into a new routine, Joan always lives in the moment, she rarely laments the past or looks to the future. In one sense, she accepts life in a very powerful and beautiful way.

Laughter is one way to Joan’s heart she has a powerful sense of humor and we always laugh with one another, sometimes, it seems, at the absurdity of the world.

And music is another thing that transforms her.  For a half hour or so, I took out my spanking Iphone X and went to the Apple music app and played her favorite songs – today she wanted to hear “Dream” by Fleetwood Mac, we played it over and over and again, and then some songs from Abbey Road.

I’d like to bring a boom box to her room, but she can’t  use it by herself, and she shares her room with another patient, I’m not sure the staff will want that.

I put the phone on her bed, opened the music and Joan closed her eyes, we sat in silence for a long time with our eyes closed, a kind of memory meditation, I think, and the music brought Joan back to some of the important stories of her life.

They are in there, they aren’t gone, and Joan will need them over the next few weeks. I think she is about to teach me a great deal more. It is a gift for me to share even a small part of Joan’s world, it is a special place.

If you wish,  you can write Joan, c/o The Glens Falls Rehab Center, 7 South, 152 Upper Sherman Ave., Queensbury, N.Y., 12804.