About Nan: Nan Fischer and her partner Rose Monnin were active participants in the Alzheimer’s community in Cincinnati from 2015-2022. Rose moved to the Alois Alzheimer’s Center in April of 2022 and peacefully transitioned on 12/31/25. Nan continues to be a member of a support group and serves as a Peer Mentor in a Caregiving Assistance network program.

by Neal Shah

If you’re caregiving you’re also “love keeping”: holding the love and memories when someone else can’t anymore. You’ve been told you’re slowly losing them but I want to offer you a completely different word for what you’re actually doing. When someone you love has dementia the whole world frames your life around loss like they’re slipping away, they’re no longer who they were and that you’re losing them. Yes, that is partly true but I don’t think that’s the whole truth because something else is still happening. You are love keeping.

Love keeping is the quiet work of holding the love steady when the person you love can no longer hold their end of it. You know they may have forgotten the anniversary while you remembered it for both of you. They may not even know your name today but you love them anyway by name all afternoon. The relationship didn’t end… it may have just become one sided in the one who carries it.

Here’s why I think this word matters in three parts:

1) First it changes what the hard days mean. When you sit with someone who doesn’t recognize you and you stay anyway it’s not a wasted visit. I think that’s the purest form of love there is –love that expects absolutely nothing back. Most people never love like that in their entire lives… you do it on a random Tuesday.

2) Second it tells you that the love isn’t gone. Dementia takes the memory but it does not take the bond. When you hold their hand and they settle without knowing why I think that the love is still working underneath the words that they lost. You’re the keeper of it now.

3) This means that none of this is for nothing. One day they’ll be gone and you’ll be the one who kept the whole story: every birthday, every joke, every ordinary morning. You’re not just caring for a person but you’re keeping a life from disappearing. So the next time someone says that “oh you’re just losing them” you can reframe it for them. You’re not only losing them, you’re lovekeeping and it might be the most important thing that you’ll ever do.

Early on in Rose’s and my Alzheimer’s journey I was graced with the realization that the best thing I could do for her, besides caring for her basic safety and physical needs, was to continue to remind her of who she is and all that she has been, done and mattered -to me and countless others. The best thing for both of us was to continue to keep the memory and story of her alive and to continue adding to it by continuing to live life as fully as possible. For me, this is what Lovekeeping means.

Fortunately, we were blessed and carried by a large, loving and lively circle of support who were willing to enlist in the act of Lovekeeping. Sometimes this meant me teaching others about the best ways to be with Rose by sharing information that I learned from the many resources offered by various support groups sponsored by Giving Voice Foundation, Catholic Charities Caregiver Assistance Network and the Alzheimer’s Association. Helpful articles like “How to Speak Alzheimer’s” and my own list of “Do’s and Don’ts with Rose” were shared with our circle so we could get on the same page of how to best companion Rose and make it possible to keep living fully. All those in our circle benefited from lessons learned through the various support groups and activities we were able to participate in and benefit from.

Did this story remind you of one of your own?

Whether you’re living with dementia, supporting someone you love, working alongside families, or carrying a memory that matters, we’d be honored to hear it.