HealthCentral: Have you had “The Conversation”? Nope, I don’t mean the one about the birds and the bees. This particular conversation is about the other end of the spectrum – dying. That conversation is hard enough as it is, but it becomes even harder when someone has Alzheimer’s disease. Our family didn’t really have this direct and honest conversation with Mom. Instead, I had to rely on conversations that I had with her when she was in her 60s. “Dorian, I want you to promise me something,” she said. “If I start to become like my mother (who reached late-stage dementia), I want you to take me out to the desert and let me walk off. Then you just drive away and don’t look back.”