Episode 107: Loving Someone Who Does Not Remember You

If you are loving someone whose mind is slipping away from you — a parent with dementia, a husband with Alzheimer's, a sibling or friend whose memory keeps shrinking — the grief you carry has a name. Most people will never name it for you. So we are doing it here.

In this episode, I sit with one of the most under-discussed experiences in the sandwich generation: caregiver grief. The kind that begins long before a funeral. The kind that comes with no casserole and no recognized mourning period.

By the end of this conversation, you will:

•  Recognize the specific kind of grief you have been carrying — and why it has felt so heavy and so invisible

•  Understand what one researcher means when she says closure is a myth, and why that reframe matters for women in long-haul caregiving

•  Walk away with two small, doable steps to help you steady yourself this week

SCRIPTURE HIGHLIGHT: Deuteronomy 31:6 (NIV)

Research note: This episode references the work of Pauline Boss on ambiguous loss, the program of research on anticipatory grief in dementia caregivers led by Franziska Meichsner and Gabriele Wilz, and demographic data from the Alzheimer's Association 2024 and 2026 Facts and Figures reports.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to your next best step. I'm Coach Janet J, and today we are sitting with one of the most devastating experiences a daughter, a wife, a mother, a son, a husband, or a longtime friend can go through. Loving someone who does not remember you. Let's begin. They looked at you today like you were kind of a stranger. Their eyes were warm, their face was open, and they had no idea who you were. And you smiled and adjusted the blanket and you said your name like it was the first time again. Researchers have a phrase for what you are living through. Knowing the phrase will not change their diagnosis. It may change, though, how you move through the day. Three women are listening to this episode right now. The first one is already in it. Her mother has dementia, or her husband, or her father, her sister, her closest friend from college. She is the one driving to the memory care facility three times a week. She is the one rehearsing her own name on the driveover. She is the one who has learned to say, yes, you have already eaten without sounding worn out. The second is watching it begin. Her mom is forgetting words. Her dad asked her three times last Sunday where the salt was. She's reading the articles, she's dreading what is coming, and she's also feeling guilty for dreading it. The third one will tell you everything is fine. Her mom is having a few off days. Her husband always loses his keys. There's nothing to look at yet, she says, and she keeps not looking because looking would mean naming and naming would make it real. And if that's you, you're welcome here too. You don't have to be ready. You only have to listen. And while today's episode lives mostly inside dementia and Alzheimer's caregiving, the same emotional reality applies to women loving someone through severe mental illness, late-stage addiction, or traumatic brain injury. If that is your version of this story, you belong in this conversation too. In episode 105, we talked about the summer solstice and the way that the longest day of the year can leave us feeling out of step with the season. Bright outside, dim inside. On Monday in episode 106, we asked the question many of us are afraid to say out loud, has God forgotten me? Today, that question turns. Because some of you are loving someone who has forgotten you. Before we go to the research, let's anchor somewhere steady. Deuteronomy 31, 6 says this, be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them. For the Lord your God goes with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. This verse was given to a people facing something they could not control. In the original passage, the them was an external threat. For you, the threat is the disease itself, the slow uncoupling of the person you love from the body that still walks toward you. The verse holds its weight here too. Two promises sit inside one line. God goes with you. God does not forsake you. Even when the person you love forgets you, God does not. And on the days when you are holding both versions of him or her in your memory, who they were and who they are now, God is holding all of it, the remembering and the forgetting, the grief and the love, the exhaustion and the faithfulness. Your love is still real, even when it's not recognized, and God's love for you both is still steady, even when the person you love can no longer reach for it in the way they used to. Back in May in our Mother's Day episode, I introduced a researcher named Pauline Boss. I described her framework called Ambiguous Loss in broad strokes that day. Today we're gonna sit with one piece of her work that does not get talked about as often, and it may be the most important piece for the woman who is in the caregiving season. Boss has written and taught for years that closure is a myth. Her words, not mine. She has said that the cultural pressure to find closure with a loved one whose mind is leaving them does more harm than good. There is no clean finish line. There is no moment when the grief is over and the next chapter begins. Instead, she teaches that the work is to learn to hold the ambiguity and to live in the both of someone who is here and gone at the same time. Sit with that for a second, because if you have been waiting to feel settled or waiting for the grief to resolve before you can keep living, you may have been waiting for something that was never going to arrive. Boss's invitation is steadier and kinder than that. Keep loving inside the ambiguity and stop measuring your healing against a finish line that does not exist. Alongside Boss's framework, there's a second body of research worth knowing about. It is called anticipatory grief. The grief that begins before the physical death of someone you love. Researchers like Francisca Meichsner and Gabrielle Wiltz have studied this specifically in dementia caregivers. Their work shows that grief does not wait for the funeral, it begins earlier, sometimes years earlier, and it is associated with higher rates of depression and caregiver burden. In plain English, if you have been feeling like you are grieving for a long time already, you are not imagining it. The research backs you up. The Alzheimer's Association reports that nearly two-thirds of dementia caregivers are women. More than a third are daughters, and roughly one in four are sandwich generation, caring for someone with dementia while still raising kids or supporting young adults at home. If that is you, you belong to a large, often unseen sisterhood, far larger than you may realize. Here's what happens when grief has a name. You stop asking why you are so sad when he is right here. You stop wondering if something is wrong with you for crying after the visit. A named grief is one that you can sit beside instead of arguing with. And on the harder days, that small shift becomes the difference between drowning and steadying. Let us touch all four pillars briefly. Because this grief lives in every part of you. Mentally, you carry two versions of the person you love at once. Who they were, who they are now. Holding both takes real cognitive effort and it is exhausting. Give yourself credit for that work. Emotionally, you may feel grief, relief, love, frustration, guilt, and warmth in the same five minutes. None of those feelings cancels the other out. All of them are allowed to be true. Physically, caregiver grief lives in the body, the clenched jaw on the drive over, the shallow breathing during the visit, the exhaustion that hits the moment you sit back down in your own car. Pay attention to what your body is telling you and let it rest when it asks. Spiritually, this is one of the places where faith can either feel like a thin blanket or a deep root. There may be days that you cannot pray. There may be days when all you can do is sit beside the person you love and breathe. That counts. God is in the breathing. Here is your next best step. It has two parts. Part one. Somewhere today, in the car, in the shower, sitting at the kitchen table with your coffee, give yourself this sentence. My love is still real, even when it is not recognized. Speak it, whisper it, breathe it, write it on a sticky note for the dashboard. The form does not matter. What matters is that your body and your spirit hear it from you. Because the love does not stop counting just because they can't count it back to you. What you share with the person you love is a thread, one that holds together even when they cannot hold their end of it. The thread is still there. Part two. Maybe it's a sibling, a cousin, a longtime friend who knew them before the disease. A pastor who has known your family for years. Call them and let them tell you a story you both already know. Let them honor the whole of who your loved one was and who they are now, and the love between you that spans both. That is your next best step. Give yourself the sentence. Make the call. One more thing: if you are in this experience right now and you are feeling depression that is heavier than grief, or you are noticing your own body or mind is breaking down under the weight of caregiving, please reach out for support. Caregiver support groups exist. Christian counselors who specialize in caregiver grief exist. The Alzheimer's Association has a free helpline. I'm a wellness coach, not a clinician, and I want to be honest. This kind of grief can sometimes need more than what a podcast can give. Reach for the support that is there. You were never meant to do this on your own. Before we close, the grief you are living through has a name, and that name is ambiguous loss. The research on anticipatory grief tells you that what you have been feeling started long before this moment, and it is real. Deuteronomy 31.6 reminds you that God goes with you, even into rooms where the person you love can no longer say your name. Your next best step comes in two parts: one sentence to give yourself and one phone call to someone who remembers both of you. I'll be back on Friday. Today's episode was a heavy one, and Friday we will offer something a little gentler. If this episode found you in the middle of something hard, would you do one thing for me? Follow or subscribe wherever you are listening or watching so you do not miss what comes next. I will see you on Friday. Take your next best step.