Two people in Adelaide met some time ago and had this wild idea of inspiring young people to become involved in the world of dementia and memory loss through drama. One is the Artistic Director or Urban Myth Drama Group, the other works for the ECH Residential Care group in SA. Last year, after almost two years of collaborating with a team of professionals, Urban Myth and ECH jointly presented their play about older onset Alzheimer’s called Also A Mirror. From there it has become a radio play, to be aired on Radio National on this Sunday and again next Thursday (I’ll add the times sand links when I find them!). I saw the theatre play twice, and was blown away by how insightful and respectful it was about older families living with memory loss. At the time it was very confronting as I knew I was facing many of the things they portrayed. Last night I was privileged to listen to launch of the radio play and was again saddened by the impact of this disease, but also realised some of the things I was fearful of more than a year ago, are now happening more often, albeit it gradually. Yesterday I discovered through the awareness of my pharmacist that I have been taking the wrong medication, and really had no idea of what I scripts I should have filled as I had so many. After a call to the specialist, it was worked out, and the old scripts I had kept were destroyed, and a ‘system’ is now in place where they are managed between the doctor and pharmacist. Distressing at the time, but thank goodness there are systems already working well that I can tap into to move some of the pressure from my family. There are now many times when I ‘find’ things I have been trying to find for months, like jewellery in a shoe box or keys in the cupboard. There are days I wish I didn’t have any insight at all, or wasn’t so keen to write my journal as a way of recording my world, which I then read only to discover the crazy things that are happening. There are days when I forget that I forget, and get frustrated I can’t remember something, wondering why. Writing this blog seems more difficult than usual, and it reads as a fractured thought process, which it probably is.  Perhaps the collaboration of people with dementia and memory loss, and a youth drama group might just turn out to be one way of bringing the stories of families living with dementia to the attention of all generations and a much wider audience, in a way that allows respect and love of and for people living with dementia to shine through. Listening or watching these productions, has been what I imagine to be the story telling of Indigenous communities, where the Elders pass on the stories to their young ones. Kindness, collaboration, education, awareness and understanding, acceptance, and love seem to me to be the most important attributes of all. Storytelling might be the best way for highlighting the humanity of the person, behind the symptoms of the people living with dementia.