Jordan Hammond
About 7–8 years ago, I had multiple grandparents experiencing brain degeneration. One of them was my great-grandmother, Grandmama. Known to others by her first name: Dorothy.
It was some kind of form of dementia. Nothing crazy. She was around 89 years when it started becoming really noticeable to me. Her forgetting a conversation that had happened less than 5 minutes ago or not being able to recall the name of someone important to her.
It was very hard to see but not because it was unexpected. After all, she was in her late 80s when it started becoming noticeable. Most people are just happy to still be alive by that time and I sure was happy to still have her.
The pain came from seeing this powerful, intelligent woman struggle remembering basic things and doing the simple things she used to do. It’s incredibly hard to express with words here how magnificent she was. She was the matriarch of our family. An absolutely wonderful person who made the world better by her existence in it. It was her service to others, her amazing story-telling, her gregarious personality, her sharp sense of humor, and so much more.
And it’s even harder to express here how tough it is to see the memory of someone who you admire and love so much fall apart. It’s not just forgetting names or conversations. It affects so much more.
I knew I could help prevent this for others in the future. One of the very best ways you can stave off brain degeneration (Alzheimer’s, dementia, etc), is to constantly “exercise” your brain. There are many ways to do this:
- Go travel to a new country
- Take a class
- Have novel experiences
- Learn a new skill
Those are great options but maybe not the most accessible. One easy way to “exercise” your brain is to just study. Try and recall things. Struggle to remember the answer to a question.
At the time this was beginning to happen to her, I was simultaneously learning about studying effectively. I became somewhat obsessed with trying to study and learn things in the most efficient ways possible. I became well-versed in the ideas of spaced repetition, active recall, and the “forgetting curve”. The common theme amongst these ideas is that information will slip out of our memories over time if we don’t actively try and recall it before we forget it. Or put in a more optimistic way, the length of time it takes to forget something will get exponentially longer, each time, if you try and recall it shortly before you forget it.
At some point while I was learning all this, I thought, “predicting when someone will forget something can absolutely be programmed, surely someone has already done it.” So I looked around and really tried to find an online tool that predicted when you would forget something. But there wasn’t really anything out there. There were tools that employed spaced repetition that generically increased the intervals between each time you studied. But they didn’t focus on predicting when you’ll forget something. Just that you’re studying more effectively.
When I realized that there wasn’t anything else out there, I started thinking: I should build this. But I wouldn’t have been sufficiently motivated enough to build it if I was just trying to solve my own memorizing needs or make my own studying more efficient.
It was the gradual brain degeneration of not just her but my other grandparents, that made me really want to do something to help prevent this from happening to others in the future. And I knew one way to do this would be to build this tool that combined predicting when you will forget something, to the day, with spaced repetition. When these two concepts are combined, you end up with one programming problem to solve: coming up with exact dates of when someone will forget a piece of information. Because if you study only when you’re about to forget something, you’ll get two huge benefits:
- You’ll struggle more when you study/recall (think about when things are right on the “tip of the tongue”) and that struggle will help you “exercise” your brain.
- You won’t forget what’s important to you. At all.
So at some point, I realized I can, and should, build this.
I started, in earnest, about 5 years ago. And one of the central tenets I had, and still have, is making sure this was usable by people in their 60s, 70s, and 80s. I wanted to give people a very easy-to-use tool that not only helped them never forget what’s important to them but also allowed them to “exercise” their brain on a regular basis.
Now, Dorothy is not a brain-degeneration-prevention tool. It has since morphed into a memorization tool for all but it was what motivated me to get started. And it’s still very important to me that Dorothy is usable by people who are at risk of brain degeneration. It wouldn’t have helped Grandmama since she never used a computer or smartphone and most importantly, because it was too late.
Once most brain degeneration diseases get going, they’re very hard to stop or slow down. But you can help prevent them from getting started by “exercising” your brain regularly. That’s where Dorothy can come in.
Dorothy won’t prevent brain degeneration but it can help decrease your chances of getting it. Think of it like an elliptical. An elliptical by itself does not prevent heart disease. But if you go on it 3x/week, you will significantly decrease your risk of heart disease. It’s the same with Dorothy. Use it daily for a few minutes and you’ll go through brain “exercise” regularly thus helping prevent brain degeneration.
That was my motivation to get started. And so when I eventually had to come up with a name, I took a lot of time to think about it. I was initially leaning towards naming it after Grandmama but I felt that I would be using her or it would be wrong for some reason. However, I spoke with a lot of people about name ideas and almost everyone loved the idea of naming it after her. And I just knew I really, REALLY wanted to do that.
She was one of the most important people in my life. An absolute beacon of kindness, courage, and resilience. Off the top of my head, these are some of the things that made her special to me:
- She grew up very poor in the Great Depression and learned how to be truly grateful for everything she had.
- She always stuck up for those being bullied. There are multiple stories of her when she was in her childhood protecting and standing up for someone who was being bullied or being hurt. It helped that she was physically strong and about 5’8″ as a young adult.
- She used to bake cakes for everyone. She became known as the “Cake Lady” around town. She would spend so much time making these cakes for people for no other reason than to bring them joy. And trust me, those cakes were GOOD.
- She acted when she saw bad things happening. A story she used to tell was of her as a clerk at a dress store in a mall. Someone stole one of the dresses from the store and she saw it happen. She could have just stayed at the store and done nothing. After all, it wasn’t her store. But that’s not who she was. Once she could, she left the store and walked around the mall trying to find the person that stole the dress. She eventually found her and demanded it back. The person who stole it did give it back because if you’ve ever seen my Grandmama righteously indignant, you would know that you are not going to win this battle.
- She was always so genuinely happy and grateful to hear my voice when I called. I could always tell she sincerely wanted to know how I was doing. Even once her brain had really started degenerating, she would, very genuinely and excitedly, ask me “How you? Are you still traveling the world?” every couple minutes. She may not remember that we already talked about it but she remembered that traveling was important to me and she sincerely wanted to know how it was going. And even when her memories were almost gone, she remained good.
- She was always giving money to people in need. If she heard of someone in the family, or a friend of a family, or even a complete stranger in need of even a little help, she would go discreetly into her bedroom and write them a check or get out some cash. If they weren’t there at the house, she would have someone give it to them. But if they were there, she’d slip it into your hand and give you a face that said you’re not supposed to say anything. She didn’t have much but she always gave what she could.
That’s just some of the things that made her special to me. If there is only one thing to say about her, it’s that I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who better embodied the phrase “lead by example”. That was her all the way.
For all those reasons, I decided to name it after her. Dorothy.
Unfortunately, Grandmama passed away last August. She was 96 years old.
I’m so grateful for the time I had with her. I hope that I can carry on a legacy worthy of her name. I’m confident I can. Not because it’s easy to create something worthy of her. But because she would be proud of anyone who was using her name to help even one person out. And I know this is doing that.
If she’d be proud of what I’m doing, then I know I’m doing the right thing.
