Seven years ago, when my grandmother JoAnn was first diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, the news sent me into a tailspin of fear and sadness. ROBERT LELEUX takes a novel look at experiences of the disease:

In my splintered Southern family, JoAnn had been more than my grandmother. The Auntie Mame of my Texas childhood, she taught me that happiness requires a great deal of thumbing one’s nose at convention. When I was 4, during an afternoon trip to the art museum, she told me to run my fingers along the brushstrokes of a particularly stunning Van Gogh: “They may kick us out of here, darlin,’ ” she drawled into my impressionable little ear, “but you’ll never not have touched that painting.” It was a life-affirming, if inappropriate, lesson.

Without JoAnn’s outrageous example, I’m not sure I’d have had the courage to move to Manhattan, to come out of the closet, or ironically, to accompany her through the final years of her life.

Little did I know that even after she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, my grandmother had only begun to educate me.

“The wonderful thing about Alzheimer’s,” she once quipped after her diagnosis, “is that you always live in the moment.”

Read more at the New York Times Health Blog