In 2019, my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. The decline had come swiftly. A week later, my mom fell and broke her femur bone—the biggest bone in the body. 

She called me at 8:00 a.m. on a Thursday morning while she was lying on the floor of their home in Grand Rapids, MI. When I received the call, I was at my house in Washington (DC), maki…