Winter 2020
"Boo... how do I get home?"
My mother called me from a gas station in a snowstorm, lost. She was eighty-six. She flagged down a stranger, told me she'd call me back, and then I couldn't reach her for two and a half hours. When she finally called, she didn't remember any of it.
I built my career solving problems other people had given up on: fourteen years in the Army Reserves, a business built from nothing while working full-time, a reputation as the one who always finds a way. So when my mother's decline started taking pieces of me, I did what I always do. I built a system.
This is the story of what it actually takes to hold a family together while a parent is disappearing. One board, one hard conversation, one 11pm question typed into an AI chat window at a time. Part memoir, part practical guide, for anyone caring for a parent with dementia or memory loss, and anyone still learning the hardest lesson a lifelong fixer ever has to learn.
