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Prunes | Apr 23 2004

Late in life, my paternal grandfather developed Alzheimer’s. The disease advanced swiftly. Within a few months, he could no longer recognize a single person, not even his wife. In broken, incoherent sentences he would tell the same story over and over, unaware that he had just finished telling it. It was a story about prunes, about how as a young man he had lost weight by consuming a tremendous quantity of prunes, both whole prunes and prune juice, and how, confident now of his appearance, he had won the heart of my grandmother.

I never saw him happier. The disease melted the sorrow from his face. Suddenly his eyes, which I had never noticed before, sparkled. He was free.