Last spring, my group chat dinged with a message: "FYI Ben's mom ran away carrying only her cat."

This event, later dubbed The Great Escape, was the most drastic incident cataloged by our friends in the deep end of caregiving. It was both alarming and absurd -- a woman with dementia, cat tucked under arm like a running back for her beloved Packers, bolting from her new assisted living facility without a wallet, phone or the ability to remember the address of where she had lived for decades. Text by text, the story filled in. She ended up in a local paint store. A conscientious cashier drove her more than 10 miles "home." A frantic search, aided by a time-delayed AirTag and first responders, found her safe within the hour.