It did not come in the form of a person I love being diagnosed with a form of dementia, a job (I was, after all, a 6th grader), or via a parent’s career. It came through a comment made by a classmate in my science class.

In my 6th-grade science class, my peers started talking about dementia. At the time I had no clue what it really was, nor was I aware of anyone in my life who had dementia. I knew enough, that when a classmate started calling it, “old timer’s disease,” that this person was further stigmatizing dementia instead of dreaming of a something better. This launched my passion for working with dementia as a volunteer. In 2005 when my grandmother was diagnosed with Vascular Dementia, the story become personal. My view of dementia, as well as a greater awareness of what it means to live with dementia drastically changed. I experienced the struggles, stereotypes, shame, joy, love, laughter, and dynamics of the family journey. The world of dementia that I had moved into continued to grow, evolve, and transformed once again as I worked to make dementia my career recognizing that I was uniquely created for this purpose.

In my Art Therapy and Drama Therapy studies, I immersed myself into the clinical and regulatory world of senior living and found myself longing to bridge the gap between the clinical and the social, the brain scan and the relationship. In 2011, after deferring graduate school I found myself spending my time in the world of arts access and life enrichment and created the Dementia Letters Project. It started off as a Life Enrichment program and me piecing together both professional and volunteer work (which at the time was named, Bonae Memorie.) In 2015, I started the shift towards officially launching the Dementia Letters Project as you see it today.

Over the last 16 years, I have recognized the need for those living with dementia to tell their story, and for the greater community to start having a different type of conversation. There exists a longing to move away from doom and gloom and into beauty and joy. I started the project as a way to help all of us share our stories of dementia and move into that joy. As I write the current pages of the Dementia Letters Project story, I invite you to join me, to co-create a new narrative of dementia.