It was a freezing night in January 2007, the road in front of the house was covered with snow. I would be entering the Order of Saint John of God a few days later and, as always, I was sleeping with the windows partly open. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, I woke up and heard a faint voice imploring, “Sweet Mother of God, help me. Won’t anybody help me?!” I got up and looked out the window. Under the dim light of the streetlamp I glimpsed a shadow hunched over the snow that kept repeating its faint cry for help. I went downstairs, opened the door and called out to the shadow. It was an elderly woman who was clearly in a state of confusion.  She stood wearing only her nightgown, barefoot in the snow.  I invited her in, fixed some hot tea and covered her with a warm blanket. Little by little, the woman opened up. I realized at once that she suffered from dementia.  After some initial reticence, she told me her name and where she lived. But the house she indicated to me had been torn down years before. Her name was not in the phone book. So I had no choice but to call the police which, after some investigating, was able to track down her daughter. After some time, her daughter came to pick up her mother, who had left the house, climbing out of a window, and had wandered for hours in the cold night. As they were leaving, the old woman said to her daughter: “What a lovely evening. Perhaps we should reciprocate and invite this young man over to our house soon.”