Yesterday, quite out of the blue the house phone rang and Mrs O picked up. It was the care home. This was the call she had been dreading for some while now. Her mum had died suddenly. No fuss, no melodrama, just went.

I had noticed over the last month that she was travelling further back in time and even last Sunday I am not sure she knew my name, she had stopped mentioning my name about 4 weeks ago but somehow her eyes had shrunk and sunk. Mrs O had a similar visit on the Monday. We were both of a mind that her retreat into the depths of dementia was accelerating.

It was somehow fitting that she died with the nurse who who took her in on that miserable wet December night in 2012. She was visibly shaken and it must be very hard on caring and nursing staff who tend after our nearest and dearest when one of their charges passes. We, it has to be said became visitors but we were no longer part of her daily regime. Park View staff were her immediate daily family.

Over the two and half years she has lived there I have got to know many of the residents by their first names, in fact I honestly think that another visitor thought I was an inmate on one visit as I was sat having totally nonsensical conversations with these dementia sufferers. It was always sad to see a vacant chair where someone used to sit. Our old dog Sam used to relish each visit but his ‘Grandma’ never did ask why he had stopped visiting and soon after his demise in September 2013, she was back to Bilbo era and he went in 1998. Such a cruel disease.

It was very poignant when Mrs O emptied her small handbag last night – the one thing she always had with her in the home until recently. An odd toffee, a St John’s ambulance badge engraved with Mrs O’s uncle Ollie, a few scraps of paper with her room number, her front door key – she could never accept that she had left home and was always going to go back and last of all my business card. How strange that that should be in there.

I don’t know if dementia suffering is getting worse or whether it is a case of it being recognised by healthcare professionals. What I do know is that is a cruel disease that robs people of the dignity. I cannot speak too highly of the dedicated vocational staff who work long hard hours in good care homes.

May she rest in peace.