For most adults, navigating the mind of a person with Alzheimer’s is no easy task. It’s a disease that currently has no cure, and according to www.alz.org, there are an estimated 5.5 million Americans living with Alzheimer’s today.
One of those people is a 70-year-old woman named Miriam.
In a YouTube episode posted by WatchCut Video, six children who know nothing about Alzheimer’s are put in an interview with Miriam.
Each of their conversations start out innocent with Miriam introducing herself and the kids doing the same. She quickly forgets one little girl’s name, before going on to explain what is wrong with her brain.
Miriam does an excellent job of breaking down Alzheimer’s in a way that each of her youthful guests will understand, but it’s the responses of each kid that really make the whole interview.
She asks if they’ve ever forgotten things kind of like she does. One little boy tells Miriam about a time when he set the TV remote down, left the room and returned, unable to remember where he’d put it.
Another little girl likens Alzheimer’s to a problem her dad has where her mom tells him to do things and he doesn’t do it.
On multiple occasions throughout the interview, Miriam forgets what she’s trying to say. She explains that her brain is working backward. Soon she’ll forget how to eat, who she is and almost everything she knows how to do.
The more they talk, the more some of the kids take on a profound sense of empathy from learning just how serious Alzheimer’s is. It’s not just being forgetful about someone’s name or the remote. It’s completely losing yourself.
One little boy becomes emotional when Miriam tells him sometimes it makes her sad to have this disease and forget things. But she reassures him that getting upset about what she can’t control just makes things worse.
Ultimately, all six children learned about Alzheimer’s, and Miriam instilled in them her contagious hope for a cure.
Our prayer is that God would work miracles on behalf of those suffering from Alzheimer’s, and that one day there would be a cure for this debilitating disease. He is the Great physician, and we know His healing hands are always at work.