You are old now. This is how it happens, right? All those years of work leading up to evenings on a couch in front of a blaring television. You have long whisps of white hair and eyes in a manner suggestive of recollection, but it is only a hint.

Your mind seems to go in and out like a tide. Once, when it had floated away, somewhere beyond the horizon, you asked how I was feeling. As you asked, there was a pause, a moment of stillness. Have you done so before? I don't think so. I would remember this. I am young - younger. 20 years, and this question was only hinted at. It is your fragility and mortality; they are watching you. They are your guests in this small room, the one with your loud television. You finally asked how I was, but I think you see a younger you tucked somewhere in me, a different version, a better version.

"How are you?"

It is in that moment of lucidity, in the stillness where the delicate place where Alzheimer's has lost its grip, where I am a mirror.

"How are you?"

But it isn't a question for me. You are asking, 'Did I live? or just exist.' Again, the tide goes out, a stillness returns, you resume existing, and we sit silently.