Memory

I just finished In Love by Amy Bloom. It’s a raw and honest account of walking with her partner towards and through his choice to use Dignitas after a diagnosis of Alzheimers. Bloom gives us insight into the funny, annoying and tender particulars of their love as well as their gradual and imagined loss. At the end, as they sit together in the reality of his imminent choice, the memories that flood him are all from his college days when he played American Football. Are these his most treasured moments, the ones that defined him, or simply the stories he was used to telling? It made me wonder. Faced with a conscious death, what would I remember? What would be the defining and most cherished moments of my life?