My mom has dementia and it's often difficult to know where she is coming from regarding my deceased father. She will talk to me as though he is still around and yet someone came up to her recently while we were at a restaurant and told her how much he missed Walt. She said, "I miss him, too." Another time she said to me, "you can only fool yourself for so long" in regards to dad. However, most of the time she will talk about him in the present tense. She even bought some cookies because she said "your father likes them." I'm certainly not going to correct her (which is pointless with dementia anyway) so I said, "I remember you buying those and I loved dunking them in lemonade."
Father's Day is tomorrow and I actually won't see her until Monday, but I wondered if I should say something about him being a good dad. I'm wondering if she will think about his birthday or their anniversary. Do I bring it up or do I just wait to see if she does?
I've read so much about people losing a loved one and no one wants to talk about it. It is awkward because you don't want to make things worse, but you also don't want to make the person who has lost a loved one feel that you don't care or aren't willing to share memories, grief or whatever.
I'd really appreciate some feedback. Thanks.
I always looked to her for what I would say. If she knew he was gone, we talked about it openly. If she thought he was at the store, I left it alone.
If you want to say something anyway, how about something neutral like "I was lucky, when I was young my dad was the best dad."