One of my most enduring memories of volunteering is of helping with a beauty club for patients with advanced Alzheimer’s Disease. Each week I would be regaled with stories of young women visiting their mothers and planning fun outings with their girlfriends. While I applied makeup and painted fingernails, the smiles and facial expressions were those of young women anticipating a good time.

On the outside these ladies were quite different. Some were frail while others were full of vigor; all were elderly. The mothers of whom they spoke had long since passed away along with some of the girlfriends and the spouses (who often went unmentioned).

When I saw “The War Outside and The War Inside” (Studio Art Archives, Spring 2022 Intima) by the storyteller and mixed-media artist Claire Lawrence, I was struck by how the duality of the two powerful art pieces could reflect the experience of having dementia or Alzheimer’s Disease. On the inside, the mind is quite busy, even chaotic, with thoughts and memories that fit a specific context. Meanwhile, the outward appearance exists in stark contrast.

It is human to conclude that the outside shows all there is to see. Perhaps my recent work “Who I Am” (Fall 2023 Intima) is a reminder to all of us that the mind constructs a narrative for each of us. That narrative can only be seen by those who look past the outward appearance to find what is within. Perhaps our best hope is that another might see our beauty within.

© *The War Inside from* “*The Impact of War on Mental Health”* series. Claire Lawrence *Spring 2022 Intima*

Kimberly Mitchell was born and raised in Newfoundland, Canada where she developed a love of teaching through storytelling. She is a strong indigenous woman who is a mother, daughter, sister, wife and friend. Now studying medicine at Queen’s University, Ms. Mitchell is grateful to all those who have taught her the wondrous beauty of life and the great privilege it is to be present with someone in their death.