My grandfather circled the room and asked once more.Where’s Barb?He wasn’t agitated. Didn’t seem worried. It was more a matter of fact. It only just occurred to him then – as had several times before – that his wife of nearly seven decades wasn’t in the house.The exchange played on a loop. Each time he’d restart his inquiry and each time I assured him all was fine. With that answer a sense of ease appeared on his face. I liked that I could momentarily mollify his worries. To see him calm. It wouldn’t last.Barb, my grandmother, was in the hospital recovering from routine knee surgery. While she was recovering, those of us who lived nearby rotated grandfather-sitting duty. Just as with a child, danger is found in the mundane for those whose memories and cognitive abilities fade.I’m not sure when his Alzheimer’s arrived. The disease is notoriously hard to detect. It occurs gradually and then suddenly it is unmistakable, forever altering the final chapter of a life.My grandfather lived a long, happy life. He passed away in 2019, at the age of 94, still in strong physical shape and with many loved ones close by for the majority of his twilight years. He was lucky, even as his mind and memory quickly atrophied.Sometimes it’s hard to admit, but as his memory vanished so did ours of him.How do we rehabilitate the memory of a loved one who has morphed before our eyes? My grandfather’s stories, for instance, remain alive through the memories of the people who knew and loved him. They all possess unique stories about him to cherish as their own.But at some point those stories fade too.On my part, it was a stroke of dumb luck. In college I interviewed my grandfather about his WWII experience in the winter forests of the Ardennes and Huertgen as a US infantryman marching into Germany.That one conversation over lunch turned into many over several weeks. Each time he’d show up with a legal pad full of scribbled notes. I can picture him jotting down details from memory, recounting vivid moments of his life. We’d sit at a long mahogany table, and I’d press play on the beige cassette player placed between us. He’d rattle off stories until the tape clicked to a stop.I saw how the disease changed him. He possessed the same witty, but corny sense of humor and persistent affable demeanor, but those vivid details we recorded were no longer within reach. Basic conversation became difficult. Reckoning with and becoming accustomed to this new version of him meant replacing, even erasing, that earlier version of who he was his entire life up to then. The one who possessed a lifetime of stories.After my grandmother returned home, and I went back to where I lived in Washington DC, I went and found those old recordings. I wanted to hear the voice of that older version. Listening to those tapes rehabilitated fading memories. Connected present to past.Listening to those tapes didn't change the fact that my grandfather was irreparably slipping away, but it did give him back much of the fullness he deserved. It allowed me to see the person whole again and appreciate more fully who he still was.