A love that stayed, even as memory changed.
John was a builder by trade and a runner at heart — a Columbia River High School standout who paced his team to a cross country title. He carried that same drive into everything: his construction business, his family, our home in Woodburn Senior Estates & Golf.
When John was diagnosed with frontotemporal degeneration (FTD), it changed the shape of our life together, but never the love underneath it. I left my career to become his full-time caregiver. He gave up his truck and his tools, but he never gave up his independence — right down to the driving test he passed for his own golf cart license, with Maggie Mae, his schnauzer and service dog, riding beside him.
We found out quickly that FTD is a disease most people have never heard of, even though it's the most common dementia diagnosis for people under 60. We leaned on faith, on each other, on our community at Senior Estates, and on organizations doing the hard, quiet work of FTD research and caregiver support — including the team at UCSF's Memory and Aging Center, whose founder, Dr. Bruce Miller, later wrote the foreword words that now sit on the front of my book.
John passed away in 2015, after an eight-year journey through diagnosis, caregiving, grief, faith, and enduring love. This site holds a piece of that journey — the books it became, the photographs and clippings we kept, and the resources I wish every FTD family could find on their first hard day.
