1. Deny Denial Our first impulse was to write off Mom's slips of memory to the vagaries of an aging brain. No, it couldn't be happening to Mom. I forgot things all the time. I spent half my life looking for stuff I couldn't remember what I did with. It was just part of getting old. But we should have known better. Her father had dementia, and both her sisters died in memory care. One of her brothers was in the early stages when he succumbed to a stroke.