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What would you tell the world whilst you can still remember? What gifts would you give?

Most of us can’t begin to imagine a time when our minds might betray us, when our thoughts may stay frozen, unable to make the journey from our brain to our tongue. Unuttered sentences. Lost syllables. The coldness of a silence that imposes itself without want nor welcome.

Being witness to the struggle that those with Alzheimer’s face is a challenge. Watching their landscape change from a clear, luminous outlook to a murky, shadowy unknowing seems to be almost as harrowing as the actual decline of the sufferer. Helplessness on both sides.

There is little else as heart-wrenching as the bitter blow of no longer being recognized by those we love.

Coming face to face with a blank, vacant stare is an unwelcome reminder of how utterly we define ourselves according to our worth in the eyes of others. When we are forgotten by our loved ones, it leads us to question our own merit, our very existence. It can be uncomfortable observation at best, devastating clarity at worst.

I remember visiting my aunt in hospital when I was a child. I saw through infant eyes the way in which she could seamlessly travel from the present moment to an unknown place. She was able to journey there with ease. An instant transportation. Her expression would change from one of lucid awareness to one of remoteness and I would know that she had left again.

She could sometimes recall childhood events but she had no idea what she’d just eaten for lunch.

I’m not sure how the mind decides what pieces to hold onto and what to let slip away. I do know, however, that the memory that dementia steals serves as an unapologetic reminder that life is a series of moments, any one of which can be forgotten, almost as though they had never actually existed at all. Fragments of time fall into a space that cannot be harnessed by the mind or pinned down by the pen. They merge into the endless ether, seemingly without a trace. Yet, we are still changed because of them.

I like to think that the lost times live on in the heart, even when the minds eye becomes cloudy, that they still have an injection of life through the beat of love that another organ can provide.

A strange, sometimes welcome, side effect of this illness is that not everything is always forgotten and sometimes remnants of clarity remain. The memories the mind fought to keep. Perhaps some things are just so true that neither time nor man can erase them.

For the voyeurs, there is a wretchedness that surrounds Alzheimer’s. A pendulum that swings from hope to heartbreak with a regularity that offers no comfort. Moments of relief are swiftly replaced by hours of grief. How do we possibly find a way to push through the despondency?

Perhaps we take more pleasure in cherishing the beauty of the moment, the only truth we know. Maybe we reassure ourselves that Alzheimer’s is simply another state of being, not necessarily one of dark terror, but a different plane that may pose no true harm to those that fly on its wings.

Hopefully, above all else, we wrap love around those whose reality is forever removed from ours, keeping them safe as they wander where we cannot follow.

Photo credit: Konstantinos Tamvakis

Earlier on Huff/Post50:

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This is one story from Huff/Post50’s new series “This Will Be Our Year: 15 Women Over 50 Shaking Things Up In 2015.” We’ll be following 15 remarkable ladies throughout the year as they make a radical change in their lives, whether it’s embarking on a 500-mile hike, starting a new career or attempting to find love on the Internet. Start from the beginning here.

Meris Emory, 65, has retired, is about to take her trip-of-a-lifetime, and will soon start a workout program for fellow sufferers of Parkinson’s Disease.

“I retired on April 2 and I feel just great about it — elated, actually! I loved doing my job up until about two days before I left — I loved it for 40 years — but man, at the end, I was just ready to move on. Sure I miss my co-workers, but life feels so much easier to me now, no more 12-hour days and I can work on my own projects. I’m loving it.

I had a great 65th birthday party at the end of March. My friends all flew in, even the ones from Hawaii, and we all cooked together and had the best time. We played music outside — stuff from the ’60s. ’70s and ’80s — and we hung out and talked and just had a great time all being together. I love just being around the people I love.

On May 4th, Liz and I leave for a month-long camping trip and right now we’re busy getting ready and packed for that. We’re going to meet friends in Arches National Park and travel together through the Southwest. We’ll stay in Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. They have a popup trailer and so do we, so we’ll visit all the national parks, cook, hangout, hike together. Just our friends and our dogs. We’ll spend four nights camping on rim of the Grand Canyon. I’ve always wanted to do this, so it’s like a dream come true for me.

And then it’s home and down to business. I have developed my workout program for people with Parkinson’s and had a physical therapist help me fine tune it. I hope to have it launched and in place at the Piedmon Gardens senior center by mid-June. My own health has been stable. I wish my arm and hand were stronger, but I’m working on it. The shaking wouldn’t be a problem, but it’s just like having a limb that doesn’t want to come to the party, won’t acknowledge that it’s part of your body.

I also joined a free dance class for Parkinson’s groups. I’m taking a ballet class with the Mark Morris Dance Company — two dancers lead a 90-minute workout. It’s just awesome.”

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An ultra-Orthodox man works at Haredi Hi-Tech Forum in Bnei Brak, Israel.

BNEI BRAK, Israel — “3,000 years ago, the people of Israel came from Egypt,” Yitzik Krombi begins, sitting in his ultra-modern office. He tells a story of faith and tradition — one that unexpectedly ends at a technology startup on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.

It is here that ultra-Orthodox Judaism and high-tech align in what Krombi says is the very thing that could save his insular community in the impoverished city of Bnei Brak.

“The Jews here aren’t integrated with the secular community,” he explains. “But we need money and we need work.”

That’s why Krombi and his business partner, Racheli Ganot, decided to found a tech incubator four months ago as part of their Haredi Hi-Tech Forum. The incubator specifically targets the Haredi community — much of which lives below the poverty line — and is the first of its kind.

“We’re doing the same thing [in this startup] as in Tel Aviv,” Krombi says. Just a few miles away lies bustling, liberal Tel Aviv — a technology hub known around the world for innovation. “We need to bring the high-tech to Bnei Brak.”

Yitzik Krombi in his office in Bnei Brak.

Those in Krombi’s community, known as the Haredim (meaning “‘those who tremble” before God, in Hebrew), cling to tradition. Most men do not work and many refuse to perform compulsory military service, devoting their days to learning Torah and living off what is now meager state support. Making up roughly 10 percent of the population and growing fast, they have drawn much controversy, with some Israelis saying they take advantage of the state at the expense of secular Israelis who work and serve in the Israeli Defense Forces.

But in recent years, the Haredi community has taken to the world of technology. Some Haredim now even learn programming in post-high school programs, catering to the new job market.

Krombi says he frequently receives emails from ultra-Orthodox Jews detailing a big idea that they have. “But they don’t know what to do with it,” he says.

A young ultra-Orthodox man who is part of the incubator program holds an iPhone with a map he hopes to make interactive.

The incubator’s program, set to last for two years, recently took in 10 startups, providing funding (85 percent from the Israeli government and 15 percent from investors) and mentorship for the entrepreneurs.

Benjamin, one of 21 participants in the program (who asked not to include his last name), says he just didn’t know how to bring his idea to the market. When he saw information about the incubator posted on a website he says is frequented by religious developers, he immediately reached out and applied.

“They understand our needs as religious people,” Benjamin explains, holding an iPhone with a photo of a map. He and his cousin came up with the idea for a startup that would turn maps, say from Disney World or Jerusalem, into interactive experiences. “We hope this place will help us,” he says.

While Krombi is an ardent advocate for his community, he says ultra-Orthodox people face obstacles in the high-tech world. Some don’t use computers or the Internet, for religious reasons. And many, like himself, grow up without much of an education in English, math, and science, focusing instead on studying religion.

But now, more high-tech courses are offered in the community and people are learning skills as adults in order to enter the field.

Most notably, the high-tech sector has changed the lives of Haredi women, many of whom now work at startups so that their husbands can continue to study Torah. Before, women who worked were confined to more traditionally “female” positions, like teachers.

“It’s a new generation,” explains Chavi, a hardworking mother of two who has worked at Rachip for six years. She asked to only use her first name, out of concern. With a book of Jewish prayers sitting next to her keyboard, she types away, working on a project that builds chips for satellites. She arrives early every morning so that she can leave early to pick up her children at school, since her husband gets home late from Torah study. “It’s nice that this is working out,” she says. “We see the reality after we’ve worked so hard.”

An ultra-Orthodox woman works at her computer at Haredi Hi-Tech Forum with a Jewish prayer book sitting in front of her.

At Haredi Hi-Tech Forum’s office, Krombi’s startup, iSale, employs four men and four women. Ganot’s startup, Rachip, has a total staff of 100 people -– all Haredi women. According to strict ultra-Orthodox beliefs, the office remains gender-segregated, with women on one side and men on the other.

“In 1993, there was a basic course for women to learn programming, and my father said, ‘Why not?'” Ganot recalls. “I was one of the first people in my class with a computer.”

Soon, Ganot expanded her education and went to work in high-tech at an Israeli company that was not ultra-Orthodox. She was the only Haredi woman there.

Realizing there was real opportunity, she eventually decided to start her own company. It all began with one room and a few employees. Now, with a successful business under her belt, she’s mentoring some of the community’s best and brightest entrepreneurs.

Racheli Ganot sits in her office.

“We’re making waves,” she says, with a smile.

Despite their bold entrepreneurship and big vision, Krombi and Ganot insist they’re not trying to change their community, but rather to provide better opportunities so that the way of life can continue. While the minority group in Israel has been resistant to change, fighting to keep their traditions alive, the business-minded duo says local rabbis have been nothing but supportive of their endeavors.

“I want my children to become rabbis,” Krombi says, hopeful that they would devote their lives to faith. But then he grins. “Or maybe my co-CEOs.”

Shira Rubin contributed reporting from Bnei Brak.

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Home decor experts Nate Berkus and Elaine Griffin dish on when to loosen the purse strings — and when it’s OK to play cheapskate.

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