We spend our lives making memories. We can dive into our memories and reminisce about shared moments, as well as draw on these experiences to shape our future decisions.

Memories are who we are, they make up our essence, and they provide a road map to the possibilities of what lies ahead.

One of my fondest memories is the trip we took to The Grand Canyon with my parents.

Vacationing with mum and dad (Myrtle and Mike) was a treat because we live so far apart and when we got together we always wanted to make the most of it.

It breaks our hearts now to think that mum can no longer recall those shared experiences and the memories we made together.

Our Grand Canyon vacation was to be a soul nourishing time for Myrtle and another step forward in her recovery from cancer (which she had overcome twice in her life).

She had undergone a second course of chemotherapy, and as part of that regimen, a trial drug called Herceptin was also added in.

We hadn’t seen her for a while as they lived in The UK, and we live here in The U.S.

But, after spending this extended time with her on the Arizona trip it soon became apparent that mum wasn’t quite herself and was showing signs of forgetfulness.

I know we all have our moments when we struggle to find a word, or misplace keys or our glasses. But this wasn’t just that. As much as we desperately wanted to chalk it down to having ‘senior moments’ I think deep down we knew that this was something else.