I can’t think of a more traumatic way to die than Alzheimer’s. You get to witness your own sense of self, your own identity unravel slowly, and witnessed by those you care about most. Cancer hurts, torture hurts, but its happening to you. Alzheimer’s is losing yourself in front of yourself every moment, leaving you in a worsening state of fear and confusion until there isn’t enough of you left to know your own name anymore. Then a blank slab sits in your place painting water colors until the slab forgets how to chew and eat and even breath until the slab of your vacant husk finally expires long after any you that you would recognize was cognitively dismantled a piece at a time.

Couldn’t have happened to a bigger garbage person than Reagan.