Our dear Mum has died. I'm grateful that the end was peaceful for her. I still can't really believe it and am struggling to reconcile the person she became (with some very brief flashes of the old pre Alzheimer's Mum which got less and less over the years) with the person she once was. I can hardly remember the "real" Mum if I can put it like that. I hope I will be able to. Mainly I feel numb disbelief. Despite the sometimes really bad times during her dementia years, there were some better happier moments too, but to be honest (and I feel horribly guilty and disloyal for saying it) these were spent with a different person so it feels like I have already been mourning "real Mum" for years and am now mourning another person, a sort of stranger who I also loved. Now I miss that other person, although I wouldn't wish the suffering to go on for her. I would like to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who replied to my few posts over the years. I didn't post a lot because for some reason I just couldn't but it meant a lot to me that Talking Point was there. Thank Heaven for this forum of people who understand the journey (how could anyone else really?) although all our journeys are different. I have had a lot of messages of sympathy from kind and well meaning people who don't know what it is like when a loved one with dementia dies and they often go along the lines of "really sorry for your loss even though/but she had been ill a long time"!