I’m still here if you look hard enough

It must have been at the end of the first lockdown when, whilst talking to an acquaintance, an older lady passed us, her husband trailing behind, not looking particularly alert.

The person I was speaking to said ‘hello’, before turning back to me:

‘He’s got dementia’, she said. ‘He’s not with it at all. I don’t know how she does it, such a burden on her’.

She didn’t mean any harm; she’s a really pleasant person, but the comment disturbed me: I didn’t want my Dad to be spoken of the same way to some other chance acquaintance that he and my Mum would undoubtedly know.

I followed the couple into the supermarket.

And, I wouldn’t have thought any more of it – other than feeling a little sadness for the man I had just seen and for knowing that my Dad’s name would be bandied about in the same way – had I not happened upon the couple again at the till.

There was a woman in front of them with lots of shopping, flustered, looking around for something to place her purchases in. It was the man who was apparently such a ‘burden’ who immediately stepped forward, bags in hand.

‘Here you are’, he said pleasantly.

And there, for all to see, was the man he had been and was still.