DEMENTIA BROUGHT US CLOSER

As Nicola Cornick witnessed her mother's health decline, there was a surprising change

- NICOLA CORNICK

You frequently hear people express the view that dementia is a cruel disease, and it is. Watching your loved ones lose the pieces of their identity that make them unique can be heartbreaking.

Yet in experiencing my mother's dementia, I found a joy that we had not had in our relationship before, and I know that she felt it too. The illness brought us much closer. My relationship with my mother had been quite distant. Photographs of the two of us together when I was a baby show her cuddling me affectionately, dazzling the camera with her smile. Within five years however, her marriage had broken down and she went through an unpleasant divorce; perhaps it was this that turned someone who had seemed open and demonstrative into the wary and withdrawn woman I came to know.

Even so, I knew she loved me. I felt it. 'Give my love to everyone,' she would say when we spoke on the phone. It was a form of words that she was comfortable with, not too intimate or exposing.

When we saw each other, the hugs were awkward, not heartfelt, if we hugged at all. My mother found it much simpler to praise my academic achievements than to offer unconditional love. I'm proud of you' was easier to say than 'I love you.'