September 21 is World Alzheimer’s Day, also marked in Korea as a day of dementia awareness. It invites us to think not only about preserving memory, but about making room for a full life when memory changes.
NowHitz Editorial · 2026-09-21 · From the archive
We recognise people through what we share: a place we visited, a familiar voice, an old joke. Yet when someone remembers differently, the life they have lived does not become any less real.
A person cannot be reduced to the response they can give at this moment. Sharing a familiar routine without rushing an answer shifts the question from how much someone remembers to how we can remain present with them.
Ask how someone is. Leave room for an answer. Sit together without rushing. And remember to ask the people caring for them how they are, too. Kindness need not be a grand promise. It can begin with a small act that says: you do not have to be here alone.
