aug8girl:

Oh, this article made me all teary, thinking of my own mother's experience in an Alzheimer's ward the last year of her life. She walked the halls constantly. On one visit, I saw that a gentleman joined her in her walks. The duty nurse said that he had recently lost his wife, and that he and Mom had struck of some sort of connection. Sadly, not long thereafter, his family moved him to another facility. Why do families get so strange about their parents doing what humans do naturally? I can't imagine having denied my mother in the last year of her life something she would have loved doing earlier in her life. How incredibly small-minded and mean to do that to anyone.

I'm so sorry to hear about that!

I was the last in my family to find out about our mom's budding romance. My mom waited to tell me because she thought I'd expected her to stay "loyal" to our father, given that I was very close to him. But I was delighted that she had been given a second chance at happiness (if what she told me was true!), and told her so. I guess sometimes family members DO see this as an act of betrayal - i.e. "how could you ever love someone else after being with Mom/Dad for 50 years?" but the plain truth is, people get lonely! And at that age, they're not looking for marriage, kids and the white picket fence...they want companionship.

I hope children/loved ones aren't worried about gold-digging. Good grief, there are legal ways to protect the assets of a mentally-compromised parent and that shouldn't even be a concern. I think, too, adult children get into the mindset of how a parent "should" behave at a certain age, forgetting that there's nothing rational about dementia.

Oy vey. I'm assuming that given the age of Bob's dad, Bob himself must be a senior citizen, or close to. I'm hoping that with each subsequent generation people get a little less uptight about the elderly and their emotional needs.