I want to thank George and Trish Vradenburg for channeling hope through heartache, guiding us in the impassioned mission to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease. Your fervent leadership is helping to usher in a time of unprecedented progress, and promising developments are reported weekly. This would be impossible without the major increase in funding you have helped to secure. So thank you for lifting the banner high for all who are living with the disease, all of us who, like you, have been touched by it as caregivers and loved ones, and indeed, the entire world of us who share some risk of developing the disease in the future.

I want to begin by reflecting on the lives of those who have bravely battled this condition, or who are continuing to do so. People like Margaret and George, my wife, Ellen's grandparents, and my father, Lester, the best man I have ever known.

September 15th will never be just another day. Nine years ago, on that date, my father passed away from Alzheimer's. And each time it comes around, something deep inside me vibrates with that strange song -- lament and march, art song and battle cry, sunset benediction and dawning prayer. And I am reminded that life is, indeed, about relationships.

I believe the loss of relationships to be the greatest loss associated with Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. But are they really lost? Are we able to tap the human core, even late into the disease, and experience the relational energies contained there? To feel the fire of those spirits still burning, rising beneath, perhaps even soaring through the debris left behind by the disease? In the end, will the fire of relationship still burn within, fueling us on to love and noble work?

Admittedly, I doubted. Blinded by denial and grief, I lived in a state of self-sustained loss, crippled by a sense of failure and my inept attempts to help my parents.  I wanted to comfort and inspire them, to give them hope and answers. Largely, I failed. The color in our world seemed to be fading.

Then, something stirred. No longer able to remain unsupervised, Dad became a client at an adult dementia daycare facility, where he was accepted and validated.  Where our family saw loss, the staff at Caring Days saw potential. They built on his strengths, paved newly discovered avenues of self-expression, and lined those paths to lovingly cheer him on. 

The greatest of those avenues was artistic creativity. He had been a saw miller, Great Depression’s child, never idle or unproductive. Dad had never painted a picture until the day he brought home the hummingbird you see behind me.

Mother didn't believe he had done it. In 50 years together, she had never seen him express himself in this way. He was so proud of it. At a time when I'm sure he had sensed the loss of prized dexterity, he created this richly colored, beautiful little bird.

Hope flew back into our lives that day, lifting our spirits. Daily we had sought the hope and motivation to remain patient and encouraging, to make all his moments as good as they could be. But where was such hope to be found?

I realized hope and inspiration for the journey can come directly from the ones who have the disease. All we must do to see it rising, to hear its fluttering wings, is to look and listen for the essence of the human being, the essential self which can't be stolen; the soul that ever whispers, "I am here." Then we can respond, "I'm here with you. We're together. Take my hand."

So we gather here with stories, our desire to help those who have been diagnosed and their caregivers, and our collective will to find a cure. In this moment, Lester's hummingbird reminds us that hope is ever alive, rising through the light of loving relationships that will never fade. In silence, let us listen for those familiar voices, each one saying: I am here.                   

Always be sure,

when dark days lighten

with a certain glow you

may have spotted in my eyes

at times, and later looked for in

other faces that you've come to know,

I am here.

Always believe,

when on canvases

of winter gray you look

for any splash of color

bleeding through to prove this setting

is life’s rising to eternal day,

I am here.

Always be kind

remembering the

warm embrace of love we

shared, though some day you may find

it hard to bring to view my face,

you’ll smile for others, and look above…I am here. 

Dr. Daniel C. Potts, MD, FAAN is a neurologist at the Tuscaloosa VA Medical Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and a clinical faculty member at the University of Alabama and University of South Alabama Medical School. He is also the founder of Cognitive Dynamics. These remarks were originally delivered at the opening of the 2016 UsAgainstAlzheimer's National Summit.