"It's Alzheimer's." The doctor's words were expected but not welcomed.

The kind, thorough neuropsychologist leaned over her desk and said what we’d both suspected. Then she followed up with two inevitable conclusions:

"Will you now surrender your right to drive a car?" she asked. Margaret agreed without hesitating.

"And you," the doctor turned to me, "now become her caregiver." No question. It was an equally undeniable conclusion.

Once back in our car we wound through the familiar roads in our Connecticut hometown. "So, what happens now?" Margaret broke the silence. For half a century, she had always been the proactive one.

"I think this is what we decided 50 years ago," the answer came without my bidding. "We promised to serve each other in sickness and in health." We drove on in silence, knowing that question was settled. Still, our life together did change drastically. As her husband, my life becomes ...