For those not familiar with the story, Here’s the article from the N.Y.Times that has a link to the actual letter that she posted:
Sandra Day O’Connor, First Woman on Supreme Court, Reveals Dementia Diagnosis
There have been diaries and discussions on her political career on this site. My response was of a different domain that has nothing to do with her jurisprudence or politics, but her public letter, given to some small degree it will affect those hundreds of millions who will, at one time of their life, be faced with a variation of her condition.
I sent to the N.Y. Times, that over the years has printed close to a dozen of my letters to the editor. Since it looks like they are taking a pass on this one, I’m sharing with the reader’s here, a much more select and erudite audience.
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Justice Oconnor's announcing her "withdrawal from public life" based on her diagnosis of the "beginning stage of dementia," seems like a radical response to memory loss that could be no worse than expected among the one third of women who reach her double eight age.
The medical profession is not attuned to focusing on the residual abilities that remain in spite of the ravages of ageing. While there are challenges that one avoids, such as the engagement in stressful adversarial debate, sharing insights and experiences are one of the pleasures of a long life.
Simply because Alzheimers has a name, there is no evidence that it is not a variation of the normal process of aging, a process which also provides a store of memories and knowledge that is too valuable not to continue to share. This holds for those who have achieved acclaim, but also for the rest of us, who by remaining involved can provide pleasure, along with a rare insight that could be a gift to humanity.