re: Have you seen a loved one in a state that crushed you…

Granddad with dementia. Went on a family roadtrip (me, my dad, my mom (nope) & my granddad) up the east coast to see a family member who was about to pass. The trip was a struggle, with my granddad constantly confused.

As we were driving home, my dad was spent so I ended up driving at night. I'm driving, my granddad was shotgun and my parents in the back. Everyone's asleep then my granddad wakes up, looks at me and starts taking about my siblings (which I don't have). Took me a few minutes to figure out he thinks I'm my dad. So I just played along and pretended to be a teenage version of my dad. Conversation was fairly short before he fell back asleep. He woke up again 30 minutes later. This time he thought I was a war buddy and that we were currently enlisted and why weren't we on base. I eventually convinced him we weren't in trouble and we were asked to transport cargo back to base. He talked to me for about an hour straight about all these stories "we" had been involved in. It was surreal. Then he looked in the back seat and saw my sleeping parents and ask who "the olds" in the back seat were...

Probably one of the most genuine conversations I had with my granddad and he had no clue who I was. He passed away about a month later