Siphiwe stopped correcting her mother. It happened gradually.
At first, whenever her mother said something that was clearly wrong, Siphiwe would correct her.
“No, Mama, Baba died years ago.”
“No, Mama, you don’t work there anymore.”
“No, Mama, we spoke about this yesterday.”
She believed she was helping her mother stay connected to reality.
But Siphiwe began noticing what happened afterwards. Her mother would become distressed. Sometimes she argued. Sometimes she withdrew. On other occasions, a correction seemed to bring fresh grief over something she had already forgotten.
So Siphiwe changed her approach.
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One afternoon, her mother looked towards the gate and said:
“Your father will be home soon. I must start preparing his supper.”
Siphiwe felt the familiar ache.
Her father had been dead for twelve years. This time, she did not say so. Instead, she sat beside her mother.
“You’re thinking about Baba today?”
Her mother’s face softened.
“He worked very hard for this family,” she said.
“Yes, Mama. He did.”
For the next few minutes, they talked about him. Her mother remembered fragments of their early marriage. She laughed about something he used to say.
Siphiwe laughed with her.
The facts were not completely right.
But something more important had happened.
They had connected
Siphiwe thought she had discovered a gentler way of being with her mother.
Not everyone in the family agreed.
“Why are you encouraging her?”
“You must tell her the truth.”
“If you keep agreeing with her, she will get worse.”
And perhaps the most painful:
“Mum is fine when she’s with us. You’re the only one who says she has all these problems.”
Slowly, dementia began doing something the family had never anticipated.
It was not only changing their mother.
It was changing their relationships with one another.
When one family sees different mothers
This is a reality many families affected by dementia experience.
One sibling may spend every day with the parent and witness the repeated questions, sleepless nights, misplaced belongings, confusion, wandering or changes in behaviour.
Another sibling visits for an hour.
During that hour, mum may be cheerful. She may recognise them. She may hold what appears to be a perfectly ordinary conversation. The visitor leaves thinking:
“There is nothing wrong with Mum.”
The person providing most of the care is left wondering whether anyone believes them. Sometimes accusations begin.
“You are exaggerating.”
“You don’t have enough patience.”
“You’re treating Mum like a child.”
“She was perfectly fine when I saw her.”
Yet family members may simply be witnessing different moments of the same journey.
A person living with dementia can have better days and more difficult days. Their abilities can fluctuate. Familiar social habits may remain strong enough for them to manage a conversation during a short visit.
The person providing daily care sees something different.
They see what happens at 2am.
They see the forgotten meals.
They find the missing belongings.
They answer the repeated questions.
They manage the appointments, medication, bathing, cooking and safety concerns. Neither experience necessarily means somebody is lying.
But failing to listen to the person carrying most of the responsibility can leave them terribly alone.
Denial can wear many faces
It is easy to become angry with the sibling who refuses to accept what is happening.
But denial is not always cruelty or indifference. Sometimes denial is grief.
Accepting that your mother is living with dementia means accepting that life is changing in ways you cannot control.
For a son or daughter who lives far away, Mum may still be the strong woman they remember - the woman who ran the household, disciplined the children, remembered everyone’s birthdays and somehow solved everybody’s problems.
Coming home and discovering that she now needs help can be painful. So we hold onto the person we remember.
“Mum has always been forgetful.”
“She’s just getting old.”
“You worry too much.”
Sometimes denial temporarily protects us from a truth we are not ready to face.
Unfortunately, while one person is protecting themselves from that reality, another may be carrying it every single day.
Connection is not the same as deception
Siphiwe’s siblings believed their mother should continually be brought back to reality. But consider what happened when Mama asked about her late husband. Telling her, “Baba died twelve years ago,” might have forced her to experience the shock of his death again.
And perhaps again tomorrow.
Siphiwe chose instead to respond to the emotion behind her mother’s words.
“You’re thinking about Baba today?”
She did not invent an elaborate story.
She simply met her mother where she was.
This is an important principle when communicating with someone living with dementia: Sometimes connection matters more than correction.
We do not have to win every argument.
We do not have to prove that our recollection of events is correct.
Instead, we can ask what the person might be trying to communicate.
Someone saying, “I want to go home,” while sitting in their own house may not be asking for an address.
Perhaps “home” means somewhere they feel safe.
Someone asking for a parent who died many years ago may be longing for comfort.
Someone insisting they need to collect children from school when those children are now adults may be returning to a time in life when being a parent gave them purpose.
Listen to the words.
But also listen for the feeling beneath them.
When dementia leaves wounds behind
There is another part of this story that we rarely talk about.
Eventually, the person living with dementia may die.
But sometimes the conflict created within the family does not die with them.
Brothers and sisters who argued about Mum’s care stop speaking.
One remains angry because nobody helped.
Another carries guilt because they did not understand what was happening until it was too late.
Someone remembers being accused of exaggerating.
Another remembers feeling excluded from decisions.
Years later, the mother they were all trying to protect is gone, yet her children remain divided.
How sad if dementia takes not only memories from one person but peace from an entire family.
It does not have to be this way.
Families do not have to agree about everything.
But they do need to listen to one another.
If one family member provides most of the care, listen to their experience.
If another is struggling to accept what is happening, offer information rather than condemnation.
Where possible, attend healthcare appointments together.
Share responsibilities.
Talk about what you are observing.
And when disagreement begins, return to the person at the centre of everything.
Ask:
“What does Mum need?”
Not:
“Who is right?”
Not:
“Who knows Mum best?”
Not:
“Whose way should we follow?”
But:
“What does Mum need from us now?”
That one question can change the direction of a family conversation.
Myth or fact?
Myth: If someone with dementia appears completely fine during a visit, the main caregiver must be exaggerating their difficulties.
Fact: A person’s abilities and behaviour can vary. A short visit may not reveal difficulties occurring at other times of the day or the amount of support the person now needs.
Demaz practical tip
When siblings disagree about changes they are seeing, avoid turning the discussion into a contest.
Keep a simple shared record of significant changes. Where possible, attend healthcare appointments together and divide practical responsibilities.
Most importantly, replace:
“Who is right?”
with:
“What does Mum need?”
Siphiwe did not stop loving the truth.
She discovered that when her mother’s reality changed, love sometimes required a different language.
She stopped trying to pull Mama into her world every time.
Sometimes, she sat down and joined Mama in hers.
And somewhere between remembering and forgetting, mother and daughter found each other again.
Until next week, let us continue building a Zimbabwe where every person living with dementia is understood, supported and treated with dignity.
