Today is exactly a week since my daughter had found her Dad had died peacefully between 3 and 6 beside her, when she awoke. We were mourning together the loss of our beautiful boy even though he had changed beyond all recognition in all the ways that Alzheimer’s changes a person, memory, functioning, behaviour but most of all physically because of the savage ‘not wanting to eat’ symptoms. He never did have serious psychiatric behaviour problems just the usual things. I have got cracking with all the necessary paperwork and yesterday put the finishing touches to the funeral which I planned and my daughter and son collaborated with. I would taken him to respite care yesterday and set off on my own respite break but I feel a great sense of relief that I didn’t have to do that. As a result I didn’t have to cancel my trip and I am going for a week of rest, sunshine and reflection before the funeral after I get back. How do I feel one week on? Still overwhelmed by emotions at times, numb, fractured images of my husband both as he used to be and how he became, a sense of unreality as if the past few years were a dream or nightmare, a sense of having been deposited back where I began 57 years ago, single, employed and independent. I do have a strong image of him from that time from a series of photographs I took so that I could have one by my bedside. They are somewhere in the stuff that hadn’t been unpacked since we moved two years ago but I am dreading the pre-digital photos. I find comfort in TP and still like to visit but I am very upset by the posts by people who are going through this terrible disease either themselves or with a family member. Small steps as my friend, whose father has dementia, says.