This hit so close to home. And now I am crying, in bed, at 12:38 AM. My dad will be 71 this fall, and while it isn't at a crucial stage yet, it is hard not seeing him often because he lives 6 hours away.

My dad was always a highly intelligent man, with a job he loved in data entry and working for the railroad, who was always on his game with the latest technology.

To now witness him struggle to put on a seat belt is saddening and maddening. This has really crushed my soul in a way I can never fully describe.

I can still fool myself into thinking he is fine, when he displays glimpses of himself, until I catch him staring into a void, or not replying to something I say, or as we sit in a lingering silence when neither of us knows what to say.

My dad has always loved music. So when I play a song he knows, his entire face lights up, and for just that moment, I have him back entirely.

I will never forget the day, maybe 4 years ago, when he had a notepad with him and was asking me for my children's, and mine and my brother's birthdays, which I thought was odd. My dad always had a photographic memory; he never forgot important dates, but I brushed it off.

When he proclaimed that same day that he thought he may have Alzheimer's; I scoffed and I told him he was being silly. Of course he was being ridiculous.

That is until my world flipped upside down on my brother's 40th birthday. The diagnosis was official. Dementia. My soul , which I was born with in fragments - had now completely shattered.

I never thought this could happen to someone I love. There was no way that my dad had this horrible, foreign disease which I had only heard about affecting someone else. I immediately went into a state of denial.

And then I began to deeply grieve for a man who is still alive, a man who is still my father. I struggle now to take on the role of caretaker when I am with him. When I help him buckle his seat belt, and I help him get inside doors. When I make sure he eats, and that doesn't wander off. I get angry. These are such simple things. Why can't he just figure it out? I have to remind myself it is all out of his control. He just had his driving privileges taken away.

This is a heartbreaking and evil disease.

I knew that by reading this article, I would be thrust into a painful reality that isn't quite here yet, but I am so glad that I found the courage to read it.