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TINA COMEAU: No more dementia, my dad is free of this cruel disease

My dad is free of dementia.

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At the age of 80, he took his final breath on Aug. 28 in his room at Villa St. Joseph du Lac in Yarmouth County – the long-term seniors’ care facility he had lived in for over two years.

At around 4 a.m., my mother Marie woke up and noticed a severe change in Dad’s breathing. She woke my sister Lisa up. Lisa woke me up.

After 57 years of having my dad in my life, our last moments together lasted around 14 minutes.

We played Dad’s favourite song – Forever Young performed by the Tenors – as my mom, my sister and I sat at his bedside, telling him how much we loved him, how much we will miss him, and that it was OK to let go.

Our final minutes were loving and peaceful.

For my dad, his years of dementia are now over. For my family this is a blessing.

While we will miss him, things were never going to get better. Dementia is cruel. It was only going to get progressively worse as Dad’s mind, body and quality of life deteriorated.

None of us wanted that for him.

Years ago, I knew our family’s journey with dementia was going to be emotional and difficult. But even though I had braced myself for what was to come, I had no idea what Dad and my family were in store for.

I knew my dad would forget people and places. I knew he would lose the ability to do things. I hadn’t known about the explosive anger he would experience at times. Or the profound fear and sadness at other times.

I didn’t know about the paranoia. The physical aggression. The hallucinations. The irrational thinking. It was difficult to make sense of this. At times, Dad accused us of terrible things that he believed to be true. We had to remind ourselves: It’s not Dad. It’s the disease.

TINA COMEAU: My dad’s hands then, now and dementia

TINA COMEAU: Dementia and my dad, what you see when you look at me?

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