The battles — a thousand of them, and more — have been fought and won, and there is a final fight Gerald Eugene Sloan will not win. Against an opponent that never loses.
Father Time, with all its minions — in this specific case, Parkinson’s and a severe brand of dementia — pummeling humans and the human condition, the condition that is weakened, year by year, month by month, day by day, minute by minute, striking even the toughest among us.
When I recently asked someone outside the family, someone who would know the details about Sloan, asked how he was doing at age 77, even though I already had been told by others, he said three words.