National Geographic News • Feb. 17, 2016

Nine-year-old Kaniya Fuqua-Strickland fidgets as the adults talk about her memory loss. Flint born and raised—just like her mother, a nurse’s aide—Kaniya leans forward on her long legs. She pivots against the kitchen table and shifts her gaze from morning cartoons to the floor to her grandmother, who is holding forth a few feet away.

“Kaniya is a child that …” begins her grandma, Gail Fuqua, mother to five and grandmother to 14.

“The memory loss!” Kaniya’s mom, Felecia Waters, interrupts.