My 90-year-old dad is slowly slipping away. Day by day, the flame in his candle grows dimmer, and I find myself watching that light with a grief too deep for words. There is something so heartbreaking about loving someone for your whole life and then having to stand quietly by as they slowly fade before your eyes.

My dad has always been one of the great constants of my life. He has been my steady place, my shelter, my strength. I have never known a world without him in it, and even now it is almost impossible to imagine one. He has been the one whose presence could steady me even in the fiercest storms of life. When everything else felt uncertain, he was not. There was something about him — his strength, his steadfastness, his steady praying hands — that made me feel that no matter how hard life became, I would somehow keep standing.

His hand steadied me as a child, and it was the same hand I reached for when we left one world behind and began again in Australia. In the middle of all that was unfamiliar, he was what felt sure. He listened, he steadied, and he loved me with a faithfulness that was simply always there. I have never had to question my father’s love. It has been one of the surest things in my life.

He has always been a strong and godly man, the kind of man who put God first and his family close behind. A man of deep faith, deep love, and quiet sacrifice. Not loud or showy, just steady, faithful, dependable, and true. The kind of man whose very presence made life feel more bearable. The kind of man whose prayers carried his family more than we will ever fully know.

He is still that man.
But now I sit beside him in a world reshaped by Alzheimer’s.

Together we turn the pages of a photo album I have made for him, tracing the outlines of a life he can no longer fully remember. I look at the old photos with him and tell him the stories that once lived so securely in his mind. I give his own memories back to him, piece by piece, as tenderly as I can. There is something so sacred and so unbearably sad in that. Just as he once told stories to me when I was a child, I now tell them to him.

Advanced Alzheimer’s has taken so much. It has stolen names, details, memories, and the ease with which he once moved through life. It has made him frail and taken away so much of the strength he once carried so easily. It has changed daily life in ways that break my heart again and again.

And yet, even now, he is still my beloved dad.

Beneath the frailty and confusion, beneath all that this cruel disease has stripped away, he is still the man who loved me so well. He is still the man whose prayers rose up for me, whose strength helped shape my life, and whose love gave me such security. Even now, beneath it all, he is still himself, and he is still deeply loved.

I look at him now and my heart aches with that strange mixture of sorrow and gratitude that feels almost too much to carry. Sorrow, because I can see him slipping further away. Gratitude, because for all these years I have had the blessing of being his daughter. Gratitude that I knew the safety of his love. Gratitude that I was held by such steadiness. Gratitude that God gave me a father like him.

There is such helplessness in this kind of goodbye. Alzheimer’s is a long farewell, a slow leaving, a thousand little losses before the final one comes. There are moments when it feels almost unbearable to watch someone you love disappear in pieces while their heart still beats before you.

But even here, love remains.

Love sits beside him and turns the pages.
Love remembers what he cannot.
Love speaks the stories back to him.
Love holds on tenderly, even as it is being asked to let go.

My dad is frail now, unable to walk, unable to remember so much, and slowly fading from this life. But he is still my beloved dad, and that is how I will always see him.

And though my heart is breaking as I watch him slip away, what rises alongside the sorrow is gratitude. Gratitude for his love, his faith, his strength, and his steadfast prayers. Alzheimer’s may be taking so much, but it cannot take away what he has given me all my life. That remains in me. He is my dad. He always will be.