She often repeating herself and small lapses in her memory are the first indications that Mora Carlisle-Nevsky's family have that something is not quite right. Only in her mid-fifties, she is eventually diagnosed with a degenerative case of Alzheimer's, which will gradually make her brain function deteriorate and which will take her life in approximately three years. Despite their family line being predisposed to the disease, each of her family members takes the news in a different way. Her husband, Alex Nevsky, vows to take care of her without outside professional help, no matter what it takes. Her older son, Nick Nevsky, a physician, has a more matter-of-fact and pragmatic view of what his mother requires. But the news hits her younger son, professor and filmmaker Daniel Nevsky, the hardest. He can't fathom his mother, a former renowned painter, losing her strong personality.