Story Behind The Song: Capture The Moments

Capture the Moments came from a quiet place — a single line that pointed toward a gentle story inside a song. It didn’t arrive with fanfare or surprise. It grew out of the years between the 2018 memory testing and the day I wrote I’ll Go On in 2022, years filled with lessons that changed the way I understood our life.

Two early lessons became like beacons. The first came from a friend who had walked the dementia path with her parents: “It becomes about making moments, not memories.”

As the days unfolded, I began to see what she meant. I stopped asking my husband, “Do you remember?” or “Do you know who this is?” Those questions weren’t helpful anymore — and they weren’t kind. They belonged to a world that no longer existed for him.

The second lesson came during the 2018 psychological testing, when I learned that my husband mixed up memories and added to them. It wasn’t stubbornness or a need to be right. It was the disease. That realization changed everything.

Let him have his version of the memory. Let the moment be peaceful instead of corrected. Let the relationship breathe. I relied on the paradigm – if it wasn’t dangerous or wasn’t going to cost a lot of money, just let it go. Let him have his world.

Our lives became gentler. I became gentler.

When I wrote Capture the Moments in 2023, I was preparing for a month‑long trip to Arizona — a place we had vacationed almost every winter since 1994. Nearly thirty years of memories. But this time, everything was different.

I knew I couldn’t travel alone with Uno for 2,000 miles. If I stopped for gas, he’d head straight for the restroom, and I couldn’t be in two places at once. So I asked a friend to come with us; she wanted to visit her brother in Arizona, and it worked perfectly. My brother met us after 500 miles, which gave me even more support. I arranged for another caregiver to fly out for the last week and ride back with us. I rented a house big enough for friends and family to come and go. I planned all of it because I needed help just to have a semblance of normalcy — and because I wanted a chance at more Arizona moments.

Capture the Moments began to take shape in that space. It carries the ache of watching someone lose pieces of themselves bit by bit, the grief of knowing more loss is coming. And the most important lesson I learned during that time:

Did it really matter, who was right, who was wrong?

It marks a shift — from trying to hold onto memories to learning how to hold onto moments. The gentleness of releasing the need to anchor someone to the past and instead meeting them where they are, with grace, presence, and compassion. Moments don’t require remembering. Moments don’t depend on the past. Moments simply are.

In the new normal, I learned that moments matter. Moments are enough. They are the meaningful pieces of life we allow ourselves — and our loved ones — to experience.

Capture the Moments.