I had forgotten just how hard the glimpse is. At first, the glimpse seems exciting. But, as you process it and realize that it really is not hope but just a glimpse, you experience a terrible sense of loss. Last night I got one of those glimpses and, to my surprise, I found myself feeling sorry for Nancy Reagan and anyone else who watches someone they love disappear piece by piece. I know from my paternal grandmother�s slow decline that, in most of those progressions, you deal with the glimpse.

The person I spoke to last night does not have Alzheimer�s. She has not had a stroke or series of strokes like my grandmother did. She does not have dementia and has not disappeared into psychosis. Instead, she drinks. Anyone who has dealt with an alcoholic in the family over a long period of time will tell you that alcoholism steals people away as surely as it warps family relationships beyond those directly with the alcoholic.

When I first came into Mr. Philately�s family, his older sister already had a problem with alcohol. I do not know whether she was yet an alcoholic but she was well down that road. But she had not yet bottled herself and she had not yet bottled her mind. In fact, she was an ally and a friend. Last night I remembered why.

I do not know whether she was sober last night. She probably was but it almost does not matter. To date, no particular moment of sobriety has lead to very many more. With each passing year I have less and less home that one will. And with each passing year the sister-in-law I once knew gets more and more remote.

Last night she called so we could speak bluntly about a family problem not of her making. That ability to speak bluntly, at least on many topics, was one of the things I prized about her. In a family in which one of the ultimate sins is being blunt, and I surely am blunt, I was at sea (or, since we are talking about Iowa, more likely at prairie.) Another was her wild, dark sense of humor that was so close to my own. Her kind explanation to me that one of my problems with my mother-in-law was that I was not blood and never would be was more helpful than she will ever know. Coming from a family in which family is more definitional than genetic, I had no basis for grasping that quickly on my own.

And when I first met her, we talked. At times we talked for hours. She was creative and funny and interesting. Sometimes she was insightful although, even then, she could not seem to apply that insight to change her own behavior. With her, when I deemed it appropriate, I could say what I thought. She herself certainly said what she thought.

And there she was last night, talking on the phone, insightful, not overly dramatic, not manipulative, and honest. I could tell her that she cannot make her mother adhere to a reasonable diet for a diabetic any more than I can make her stop drinking and know, for then at least, that she would not get angry, react in dramatic horror, or behave badly. She would just acknowledge that it was true and made her sad.

Last night she could explain that she needs help taking care of her mother�s physical needs, not exaggerate, be explicit, and even acknowledge that she makes giving help difficult because she does not know how to accept help. She could make rational suggestions on solutions to problems and consider their effect on others and their practicality. She could ask for support without playing pathetic. While the conversation was sad because it forced us to acknowledge her limits and those of my mother-in-law, it was a good conversation. It was the best conversation we have had in fifteen years or so.

After I hung up the phone, I realized just how sad a good conversation could make me. I was not any sadder about my mother-in-law�s situation. (She has a broken foot that is not healing well.) The truth is that I was not just sad. I was grieving for what used to be and for the loss of what was even though I had thought I was long past all that.

The glimpse is an underline and it underlines loss.

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