it's happening slowly, but it is happening

When my mother moved into assisted living last summer, we got her a landline phone with big buttons and six presets where you can put pictures to make it super easy to tell who it is you're calling. Alas, the pictures are hard for her to make out because the contrast isn't great at that size, so I turned them over and just printed everyone's initials, black on white, easiest thing. Her brother, her sister, her um-friend, and her cousin all have different initials, no problem. My brother and I have the same first initial so all our lives we've been designated on family calendars and things by our first and middle initials together.

She can't remember our middle names.