Danny Glover’s daughter Mandisa knew something was “going on” with her father before he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
“My father’s history is that he remembers everything going back to 1970. He remembers everything: what street corner he was standing on, who he talked to, what he said, what color he was wearing,” she said in an interview with People magazine published Wednesday.
But in 2022, when the actor told a story “about her parents” that she had heard “over and over” as a child, she began to realize that “a part of the story was missing.”
“I said, ‘What is going on?'” Mandisa recalled. Now, his father says, “Sometimes he’s aware of it, and sometimes he’s not.”
She also branded Glover’s struggle with dementia “depressing” and said, “This is about changing the core of who you think you are, or who you don’t think you are.”
The experience has been “extremely painful” for Mandisa, who is trying to “just… live each day as it comes.”
Glover shared his struggle to come to terms with his own health struggles, saying, “I had to admit that while it was happening to me, there were millions of other people struggling with it.”
The Grammy nominee continued, “I still haven’t accepted all parts of it in my mind. There are moments that I keep remembering, which confirms the fact that people remember things. And there are moments that I’ll never forget.
“I don’t think this is the end of my life,” he continued, declaring, “There’s work to be done.”
As for the message Glover wants to send to the nation, he said: “I still have my daughter, I still have my friends, and I just want to say, your life goes on.”
Glover announced the results of his 2023 diagnosis Wednesday morning on the “Today” segment with Lester Holt.
While he can “in a sense live with it,” the “Lethal Weapon” star said, “I’m sure as it goes on, things will change differently.”
The Emmy nominee added that his family “absolutely…got[him]back.”
Mandisa also took part in the roundtable, emphasizing how “very important” it is for fathers to “control their own stories, their own life stories.”
“It’s really important. And now is the time. Is there no better time than now for him to talk about himself? It’s important because people sometimes ask questions, and I don’t want to be the dishonest person and say, ‘Oh, yeah, everything’s fine. Everything’s great,'” he gushed.
