But the illness itself was not what frightened me most.
My greatest fear was much simpler.
That one day, my children would look at me and stop seeing their father.
They would see a burden.
My wife, Martha, had been gone for five years.
After she died, I stayed alone in the old house we had shared for most of our marriage.
Every room still reminded me of her.
Her dishes were still in the kitchen cabinets.
Her blue blanket was still folded over the back of the chair.
Some of her dresses still hung in the closet because I had never found the strength to move them.
That house was not just a house to me.
It was the last place where our life still felt real.
So when my son Daniel and my daughter Sarah started behaving strangely, I noticed immediately.
It began with the spare key.
One afternoon, Daniel came over and said,
