Contented Dementia
Marie Cross
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If you’re lucky enough (yes I said LUCKY enough) to have experienced life with a loved one with DEMENTIA then this piece of prose I unashamedly stole from my friend’s FB page will resonate with you BIG TIME…
Before I share the post I wanted to tell you about a fascinating book I was recommended to read when my dear Dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease (just a few months before he passed away, very suddenly & tragically - NOTHING to do with his condition btw)
The book is called Contented Dementia by Oliver James and it is, quite frankly, a genius piece of literacy - whether you’re the loved one reading it, the professional carer or a third party onlooker trying hard to support a friend or family member through the living nightmare that is DEMENTIA.
While my Dad was only confirmed as having Alzheimer’s just a few short months before his unexpected and tragic death, he was indeed a contented dementia “sufferer”.?
Having been a cantankerous, rather aggressive, larger than life character in his time (you can’t work for the Daily Mail for over 40 years & not be a lairy social animal in some way!) it was almost like he’d had a personality transplant after his diagnosis, as he suddenly became extremely affable and gentile - although still maintaining his wicked sense of humour & fun ??
The stories I could tell are both endless & hilarious - winning ‘escapee of the the day’ in the brand new purpose built home he moved into for 4 short months, by somehow detecting the code in among the flowers on the keypad; stealing a shed load of remote controls & stuffing them down his jumper, taken from the ladies bedrooms (he was the ONLY man in the home at the time!); taking over the nurses station to clear out the filing drawer & get the accounts in order or bribing a patient’s visitors to grab him a banned piece of chocolate cake from the cafe, to name but a few…..??
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And at the end of the day, he was still my Dad. He was still a human being with a heart of solid gold. He was still someone who could recollect every memory from over 50 years ago & he was still wholly entitled to be respected and listened to and acknowledged in every which way.
This piece of prose I stole from my friend kinda says it all - remember peeps, EVERYONE is fighting some sort of battle and EVERYONE deserves to be treated with dignity & care.
Hope you’re resting easy upstairs Dad - until we can laugh together again in Heaven, know that I am ALWAYS respectful to my elders AND my peers, just as you taught me to be….?
WHEN PARENTS GET OLD ...
Let them grow old with the same love that they let you grow ... let them speak and tell repeated stories with the same patience and interest that they heard yours as a child ... let them overcome, like so many times when they let you win ... let them enjoy their friends just as they let you … let them enjoy the talks with their grandchildren, because they see you in them ... let them enjoy living among the objects that have accompanied them for a long time, because they suffer when they feel that you tear pieces of this life away ... let them be wrong, like so many times you have been wrong and they didn’t embarrass you by correcting you ... LET THEM LIVE and try to make them happy the last stretch of the path they have left to go; give them your hand, just like they gave you their hand when you started on your path!