This summer I am in Lisbon for a private visit.

I go to see my grandmother, who lives with Alzheimer’s.

The care home stands in Restelo, a quiet district overlooking the mouth of the Tagus River. A small building from the 1950s, most shutters closed. The walls look tired from the heat. The garden is dry, slightly overgrown, yet lovingly arranged. A secured gate reveals what this place is: a home for people who are no longer allowed to leave.

Inside, it smells of cooked vegetables and furniture polish.

In the dim living room, residents sit in worn armchairs, surrounded by rugs, pillows, and crocheted doilies. A sleepy silence lies over everything. Only from the small kitchen come the sounds of pots and pans and soft laughter.

Many of the residents live with dementia.

One woman does not stay seated. She walks endlessly up and down the corridor — the familiar Alzheimer’s restlessness. Everyone affectionately calls her “the little doctor.” She was once a scientist. They say she used to be funny. Sometimes she still is: playful, warm, mischievous. Sometimes she cries.

She is my grandmother.

I come from Germany and see her at most once a year.

Before arriving, I ask the staff not to announce my visit. They tell me she startles easily. I step quietly into the corridor, knowing she will not recognize me. There will be no shared childhood memories, no familiar conversations.

I wait.

She toddles toward me, lost in thought.

When our eyes meet, she suddenly stops.

“I don’t know who you are,” she says softly.
“I can’t say your name. But when I see you, this starts pounding.”

She taps her heart.

“Then it gurgles and turns here.”

She points to her stomach.

“Then I feel like laughing and crying at the same time!”

She touches her throat, shifting restlessly from one foot to the other. She grabs my arm, breathes heavily, her tongue fluttering in agitation.

The moment is intense.

Part of me wants to run away.

“But…,” she stammers, searching my eyes,
“but I don’t even know you!”

And then she turns and walks back down the corridor, as if nothing had happened.

I sit on the old telephone bench in the entrance area.

In this moment, I am not important.

Whether I am recognized does not matter.

Only what just happened matters.

She returns shortly, takes my arm, and links hers with mine. Like two old friends, we walk into the living room and find a quiet place together. The others barely notice us.

This small world now belongs only to us.

Suddenly, she begins to tell stories — freely and without hesitation — about fairies, kings, and princesses. She giggles softly. She no longer seems lost.

The sentences make no logical sense.
The stories go nowhere.

Yet the way she tells them reminds me of the bedtime stories she once told us as children.

For about twenty minutes, something opens.

Then she stands up and wanders off again, absorbed in her own inner world.

What stayed with me from that encounter is simple:

Memory may dissolve.
Language may fragment.

But the body remembers.

Emotion remembers.
Imagination remembers.

Creativity does not disappear with dementia.
It changes its language.

In moments like these, I am not interpreting.
I am witnessing.

A gesture.
A rhythm.
A story that lives beyond words.

Families often ask me what to do when communication becomes difficult.

My answer is rarely technical.

I invite them to slow down.
To offer simple creative gestures — a shared image, a rhythm, a drawing, quiet presence.

Not to achieve something.
But to stay connected.

This is the heart of Creative Care.

Not as a method.
Not as therapy.

But as a way of meeting another human being
when explanations no longer work.

Because when cognition fades, something deeper remains.

And if we listen with our whole body,
we can still meet.

— Claudia Wolfe
Artecura Creative Care
Sharing lived stories of creativity, care, and connection beyond words.