Our Perfect Dog

Also: The New Alzheimer's Drug Is Too Late For Us ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  [View in Browser]( | [Donate [WBUR]]( [WBUR](  [WBUR]( June 13, 2021 Dear Cog reader, Earlier this week, the FDA approved the first new Alzheimer’s drug in 20 years. The drug isn’t without controversy (you can read about that [here]( but the scientific debate wasn’t our focus. Instead, we have a personal story — a positively wrenching [essay]( by Julia Claiborne Johnson, a best-selling and critically acclaimed novelist (her latest is “Better Luck Next Time”). Julia grew up on a farm in Tennessee and now lives in Los Angeles, but she did a short stint in New England years ago, as a student in Boston University’s MFA program. Both of Julia’s parents have been afflicted with dementia. Her father was “carried away” about 25 years ago, when Julia was in her 30s, and her 92-year-old mother has it now. She wrote for us about her mom, known by just about everybody as “Mama,” who lives in a care facility in Birmingham, Alabama. I’ve read this [piece]( maybe 12 times now. It kills me (Cloe) every time, in different ways. Maybe it’s the tender way she describes her mother, who was a dynamo — one of only two women in her medical school class in Tennessee — but also carried around tweezers to pluck the stray beard hairs of the old ladies in the nursing home. Or how she describes the therapeutic power of literature: “Writing fiction, like reading it, is a way to manage pain.” Or in the not-so-subtle acknowledgement that Alzheimer’s may be coming for her next. The new drug is too late for her parents but, “What about for us? My brother, my sister, me?” she asks. “All three of us feel like we’re looking down the barrel of a genetic pistol.” Reading her essay may make you weepy, but it’ll also make you laugh. Among her many lessons, Julia's taught me that you can feel hard things and survive it. -- Cloe Axelson and Kathleen Burge Cognoscenti editors newsletters@wbur.org Must Reads url[My Mother, The Doctor. She's Still Inside There Someplace]( Mama didn’t know how many months it had been since I’d seen her, writes Julia Claiborne Johnson. Even so, half of every phone call consisted of her asking me when I’d visit, and me answering, “Soon.” [Read more](.   #%23%23[Twitter](  #%23%23[Facebook](    [I'm A Black, Gay Physician. I'm Here Today Because My Friends Saw Me — All Of Me]( I’m a pediatric psychiatrist. I’m trained in the science and the literature, but I also understand how the power of community can heal, writes Chase Anderson. [Read more](. [We All Have COVID Until None Of Us Has COVID]( India’s COVID crisis has made it clear that people’s communal faith is the miracle holding together India’s health care scaffolding, writes Shilpi Suneja. [Read more](.  Support the news [Does Biden Support Or Oppose Drilling For Oil In Alaska? Yes]( The Biden administration has taken contradictory positions on drilling for oil in Alaska, writes Frederick Hewett. It's indicative of a decades-long seesaw battle over the development of ANWR's petroleum. [Read more](. [Trans Kids Are Pawns In Republican Culture Wars]( Transphobia isn't a fear, writes Julie Allen. It's a Republican political strategy. [Read more](. [26 Years Ago, John Salvi Killed My Colleague. Now I Volunteer As An Abortion-Clinic Escort]( As the Supreme Court agrees to hear a case that could undercut abortion rights, writer Sue C. Kelman remembers why she does this work. [Read more](. What We're Reading "The daily jump began as a private ritual, a way to escape the demoralizing news of the day, get a little exercise and cheer himself up with a bike ride and the splendor of the lake.One year later, it has become something else entirely." (New York Times, "[This Is the Story of a Man Who Jumped Into Lake Michigan Every Day for Nearly a Year]( ) "America’s billionaires avail themselves of tax-avoidance strategies beyond the reach of ordinary people. Their wealth derives from the skyrocketing value of their assets, like stock and property. Those gains are not defined by U.S. laws as taxable income unless and until the billionaires sell." (ProPublica, "[The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax]( "Many people liberated from the commute have experienced a void they can’t quite name. In it, all theaters of life collapse into one. There are no beginnings or endings. The hero’s journey never happens. The threshold goes uncrossed." (The Atlantic, "[The Psychological Benefits of Commuting to Work]( “ I walked into Mama’s room — her look of joy. I’ve been alive for 62 years now and in all that time I’ve never seen its equal. — Julia Claiborne Johnson, "[My Mother, The Doctor. She's Still Inside There Someplace]( ICYMI [Our Perfect Dog]( Lisa Papademetriou and her young daughter volunteered to be foster caregivers as practice for their "real" dog. Then they met Jojo, a geriatric Jack Russell terrier.      If you’d like to write for Cognoscenti, send your submission, pasted into your email and not as an attachment, to opinion@wbur.org. Please tell us in one line what the piece is about, and please tell us in one line who you are. 😎 Forward to a friend. They can sign up [here](. 📣 Give us your feedback: newsletters@wbur.org 📨 Get more WBUR stories sent to your inbox. [Check out all of our newsletter offerings.]( Support the news [WBUR]( [WBUR]  [WBUR]( [95289b97-66e8-43d4-a174-3bc3520a79a9.png]( [Instagram](  [Twitter]( [Facebook]( Want to change how you receive these emails? 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