According to Mary, it was a life-changing experience. She was able to see her husband every day. She got real insight into the operation of a senior living kitchen. And the journey has turned her efforts toward activism, finding a voice in helping families see their loved ones during the pandemic and casting a light on how senior living communities are staffed and managed.


Mary calls for a unified front. “We need to work together,” she says. “I don’t want to do business with someone who is trying to keep me from my husband. I want to do business with someone who is trying to get me to him.” Since Mary’s story went viral, she’s become an advocate for caregivers and an influencer in the senior living industry. And it all comes from a promise Mary wanted to keep.


“I told him on the day that he was diagnosed,” Mary recalls, “I will walk with you every step of the way. You will never be alone. I will hold your hand every single day so that we’re in this together to the end. And I didn’t get to do that for 114 days. That’s what I was fighting for: to get back to him during that window while he still knew me. He needs me today, not a year from now. And when I walked in that room that day, he turned around and the first thing he said when he saw me was, ‘Mary.’ And I knew that I wasn’t too late, that I got back to him in time.”


Listen to Mary’s story in Episode 177


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