Chronicle of Undying love
When you care for someone, you never let her go, even when the going gets tough.
IT takes two to tango. The man always leads and never lets go of his partner’s hand. In the dance of life, Marcos has always held on to Monica, whom he married in 1946. His grip became tighter, and tenderer, from 2007, when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
For the next five years, until she died in his arms, he devoted his life to caring for her every need.
In 2009, Argentinian photographer Alejandro Kirchuk started a long-term project, Never Let You Go, about Alzheimer’s, one of the conditions of old age.
Kirchuk’s focus was his grandparents, Marcos and Monica, and how the disease had changed their lives.
Just as Monica became more dependent on her husband over the years, supporting her gave Marcos a new reason to live.
In Spanish, Kirchuk’s project was titled La Noche Que Me Quieras ( The Night I Want) – the name of the tango Monica sang before losing her memory.
“My aim is to show how Alzheimer’s disease changes the lives of the people who live close to the patient, as well as to raise awareness about how to live with the illness,” Kirchuk has been quoted as saying.
Never Let You Go won the first prize in the Daily Life Stories category in the 2011 World Press Photo contest.