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intense desire to reunite. But I had always known that Margaret was a vital piece in the jigsawof my life, and that I had genuinely missed her when she left home even though I was little more than a toddler at the time. My mother had always talked about Margaret during my childhood – there were lots of lovely black and white photographs of her growing up – and she also told me that Margaret had spent a lot of time looking after me when I was a baby. I have a hazy memory of sitting on a potty in the bathroom, peering into a small round hole in the tiles surrounding the bathtub. The story goes that Margaret told me a large tiger lived under the bath and that thought must have stayed with me for years, long after she left.
    My husband and our children knew that I was determined to find Margaret some day, to talk through all those memories, both good and bad. When I found her again, it seemed I finally had my chance. When I wrote to Margaret, and sent her a copy of my book, she wrote back immediately. It was a brief note saying how delighted she was to have received my letter, and that she had started to read the book but that she found the early chapters about our childhood difficulties quite painful. She promised to write again soon, but there was nothing more. Complete silence for months and months. I was convinced that she had changed her mind and decided that she didn’t really want to meet the little sister who would remind her of aspects of her life she had obviously effectively expunged from her memory.
    Then a letter arrived. A long, warm and fascinating account of her life over the decades between her eighteenth birthday and the current day. She was about to turn sixty-eight. She apologised for the delay in getting back to me. She had somehow lost my original letter with my contact details.
    â€˜
I put your letter and book away in a safe place
,’ she wrote. ‘
Guess what? I forgot where that was. I finally found it two days ago. I had put it with some art supplies in a very conspicuous place. Hmph! I’m afraid I have blindness of the mind
.’
    I was so relieved to get her letter at last that it didn’t occur to me that there was anything ominous in her words. I lose things all the time.Put them ‘somewhere safe’ and then can’t for the life of me remember where they are. I search until I find them. But I later found out it had been more than a case of misplacing – Margaret had actually forgotten that the book and letter even existed.
    Towards the end of that first precious letter she wrote about her love of travelling to France (just one of the many things we later found that we had in common).
    â€˜
Our biggest problem now is getting there and back
,’ she wrote. ‘
Unfortunately Ken and I are reaching that “where did I leave my keys?” stage. I find myself forgetting to turn the stove off, or pay some bills on time, and these little episodes are on the increase
.’
    All the signs were there, I just didn’t read them.
    Margaret knew only too well that her memory was failing. She confided in Ken that she was worried about how forgetful she had become of late, and he strongly advised her to report her concerns to her doctor. Yet each time she made a routine visit she naturally forgot to mention her increasing confusion and forgetfulness. When she finally did talk to the doctor he said it was normal for her age. At that time she would have been in her mid-sixties.
    So she did what most people do in this situation. She covered for herself by developing strategies to disguise the fact that she was increasingly unable to remember the names of her close friends and family, that she constantly lost things and was finding it difficult to remember even the most simple routines. She could still function at a level that convinced everyone, including herself, that nothing was wrong. She was just getting a little older and a little forgetful. Nothing