Losing Your Mind

Music can be therapy, for kids on the spectrum and moms and dads who can’t find the keys in the morning. It is therapy on Thanksgiving when your dog eats both pumpkin pies and when big Uncle Fred falls asleep on the remote. Music is also therapy for people with an addiction or traumatic brain injuries, and for people like my grandmother Carmella Antonelli who grew up in the mountains of Napoli and made me laugh when she snuck 2 anisette cookies onto my lap for breakfast. I lived with Carmella for a few years back in the earlier 90s in the latter stages of the Alzheimer’s that took her brain, but not her humor. A person with Alzheimer’s knows the pieces of the puzzle are missing …. and they are terrified. Carmella and I would watch tennis on the TV on Saturday mornings back in Fairlawn New Jersey and listen to Frank’s Fly Me To The Moon. She was 82 and I can’t remember a single time we talked about her Alzheimer’s. My old friend Eric talked about his Alzheimer’s for years. He passed away this week in his 50s. Maybe you know someone who has talked about their disease. Like Carmella, Eric was a young guy when he got the Alzheimer’s. I remember when his son Michael was born, just after Adam Viniteri kicked that ball in the snow to beat the Raiders. Michael talks to his dad here and if there’s a moment that hits home, it’s when the credits roll and the music plays.