When The Pieces Of Memory Are Scattered

Portland, Oregon (CNN) -- There was cake at one of the last birthdays Robert John Kreitner Jr. would have at the nursing home in Pennsylvania, but the guest of honor didn't open his eyes to see it.His wife propped him up at the end of the table. Their son Phil couldn't help thinking the scene macabre.Phil Kreitner's father, a self-taught engineer, was firm-minded and hated to concede a point. Only once in the last 12 years of his life had Robert Kreitner admitted he had trouble remembering things.

Now that his son is having memory problems of his own, he vows he'll never end up in a nursing home like his father, but won't deny what's happening to his brain."It's helpful to me that my father had Alzheimer's, because it makes it much easier for me to accept the existence of it, the reality of it, and the personalization of it, and the finality of it," says Kreitner, 71, of Portland, Oregon.

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