Mum died suddenly at home and dad because of his dementia couldn't get help or phone anyone, we found him sitting in his car the next day when we arrived for mum's birthday lunch and then obviously found her. Dad had tears often but arrangements passed him by, he didn't understand any of it, funeral directors, choosing flowers, going to the chapel of rest - veering from tears when we thought he had a moment of clarity to asking who is in the box! On the day of the funeral which was a service and burial, again mostly unaware of the whole process saying he felt sorry for whoever was in there (meaning the coffin when it was taken out of the hearse) so it was extremely difficult having to repeat things while we also were grieving and in shock. The trauma of the events undoubtedly increased his mental decline but we felt it was important to include him in everything just in case there was a moment of clarity where he could understand, we didn't want to regret not including him in case without us realising it may have helped him in his own dementia muddled thoughts. This vile illness made us doubt what is the right thing to do on most things, changing strategies, being flexible to whatever responses we got, hoping we got it as right as we could, gave up trying to second guess what dad was thinking, we just hope we got the balance right in protecting dad from further trauma and minimising further upset and making him feel included but we will never know.