The silver streaks in her hair glistened in the white light. I stared into her kola-nut coloured eyes. Her delicate wrinkles softened as she smiled. I couldn’t help but smile at her. She couldn’t help but smile at me. Life was sweet.

The door cringed open. A woman strolled in. Suddenly, the all-too-familiar smell of antiseptic and medicinal concoctions pierced my nostrils. We were in the hospital, what now seemed like Grandma’s second home. The woman was her nurse; it was time to change her diaper.

Alzheimer’s disease had been the vicious beast that had eaten away at the radiant African lady, and reduced her to a sober, nappy-wearing weakling. It struck me how age turned a baby into an adult, and then back to a baby again, how it gave a dependent child a glimpse of independence, only to snatch it away and desert it in its state of dependence.