Mum finally lost her 12 year battle with dementia on the 18th June 2015 with family at her bedside. Thankfully a peaceful end. Mixed up in my grief that I have lost mum is a feeling of relief for Mum that she no longer needs to fight and is no longer in the care home where although mostly comfortable, was against what this beautiful lady wanted. We cared for her at home until the last 3 years of life when it became to difficult and unsafe to manage her needs. I'm sure over the next months there will be times when my guilt will become overwhelming, for the time she spent in the care home and my internal battle with the sense of relief that the suffering, for her, is over. Many people thinking they are being kind suggesting that I lost mum many years ago to the dementia but it's not true, she was sometimes hard to find but on most visits there was a moment, a smile, a raised eyebrow or even the odd word that made the time I spent visiting worth every second and showed us she was still there. And at the end, when all the pain of dementia was gone, I was able to see her again, my Mum.