When I visited India as a teenager, my uncles, aunts and cousins always inundated me with questions about America. What was life like here? Was it as fast-paced as depicted in the movies? Was everyplace clean? Aren’t there any poor people here? They marveled over electronic gadgets that we took for granted.

They always had so much praise for this country until the subject turned to marriage and the elderly. Why don’t Americans stay married? And why do they stick their parents in nursing homes when they get old. I never had any answers then. I still don’t when it comes to why 50 percent of Americans are divorced. But I plan to tell my relatives now that people in this society do not shun their seniors as commonly believed. And I will tell them the story of Ric Gomes and his father, Jesus.

Jesus, who turned 80 last month, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in August. His wife had just died and the question of who would take care of Jesus was never really posed. “Family is family,” said Ric, 52. “Family is number one.”

Last summer, Ric moved in with his dad and went from being a successful commercial producer in Palm Desert to full-time caregiver. It’s a job Ric has taken on with passion. He cooks for his father. He chooses his clothes and lays them out in the order they should be worn every morning. He makes sure his father exercises, takes his medication and a cocktail of antioxidants.

This summer will mark my 20th anniversary as a reporter. It would seem that after two decades of doing the same thing, you wouldn’t constantly be second-guessing yourself. But my most recent assignment was among the most troubling for me in a long time. I was working on a story about Alzheimer’s disease. I didn’t know a lot about it. I thought it affected very old people, made them forgetful, end of story. And then I met Carl Hopkins.

Carl Hopkins is 74 years old. He’s had Alzheimer’s for about four years. When I met him at his house, he seemed like any other retired senior. He likes to drink a lot of coffee and putter around his well-equipped garage. At the beginning of the interview, he was articulate and upbeat. And then, I noticed traces of the disease. Something his wife, Sue Holloway, had pointed out earlier. Carl repeats himself. I know we all do, but this was different. He said the same phrase several times. This, I learned, is a common symptom of the disease.

When I began reviewing my tapes to decide what segments of the 45-minute interview I would leave in the story and what I would cut, I was faced with this dilemma: how do I show the viewer how this disease is affecting Carl in everyday life without subjecting Carl to embarrassment? I could have cut the tape so you saw a few of Carl’s articulate answers. You might think, gee, this guy is fine.  I knew from meeting Carl’s wife, that wouldn’t be fair. Sue, like so many caretakers, is watching her husband slowly fade away. He is no longer the guy who used to barbeque for friends every weekend because he’s now uncomfortable in social situations. It’s difficult for him to follow conversations. He can’t garden anymore because he fertilizes and waters everyday, forgetting he did it the day before. He still has a driver’s license but Sue won’t let him on the road by himself; last spring, he went missing for six hours. He used to be able fix things. He can’t do that anymore. He even forgets what he can no longer do.