It has become more and more obvious over the last year or so that my mother has developed dementia. She is constantly forgetting things and then acting like she knew where they were the whole time. It has become a real struggle as we are always having to remind her to do even the most simple of tasks.

Over Christmas me and my siblings sat her down and confronted her about it. She vehemently denied that she had dementia and began screaming at us for making up such horrible lies about her. She kicked us out and has demanded that we apologise or she will not let us visit.

We haven’t spoken to her since but finally decided to just bite the bullet and apologise, just to make the peace. She had an extremely smug look on her face when we walked in the door. I immediately noticed a foul odor coming from somewhere in the house. I asked her about it but she said her nose has been blocked for the last couple of weeks.

I asked her how dad was and she gazed at me with a look of confusion on her face. I stood up and began making my way to the spare bedroom with my mother hot on my heels. I opened the door and had to step back due to the smell. I stood there frozen while staring in at my bedridden father’s rotting corpse lying on the bed surrounded by his own waste. I turned to my mother and she simply stated “whoops” before walking away.