Dementia is stalking me lately
I lost my Dad a little over a year ago over a matter of weeks from this. Yesterday I attended the funeral of his sister a few years younger who had the same thing happen to her after she left for their winter home in October. A cousins son sent a note on Facebook a few months after we had stopped hearing from his Mom and said she was unable to do facebook because of dementia.
My closest Aunt two years younger than my Mom was at the funeral with her oldest daughter which gave everyone pause because she generally could not take time off from her job to attend funerals. That cousin is guardian to her adult daughter who had a brain injury in a car accident when she was 19 and who is also bipolar and makes my cousins life a constant ebb and flow of crisis. My Aunt chose to take her cake off of her plate and eat her cake off of the tablecloth yesterday and I saw the pleading look from my cousin because she is the Nurse Administrator for a Nursing Home/Assisted living facility here. My Aunt also had a recent fall and she kept insisting that she could pass the heavy bowls of food at the luncheon despite her broken wrist.
I needed to say these things because my siblings are not ready to hear them so soon after we lost our Dad but I have to find a way so that they can offer to help my cousin help her Mom.
I was not expecting to grieve for two wonderful Aunts this Christmas. Life is hard sometimes.
= new reply since forum marked as read
in grief counseling we were taught that you cannot actually grieve for more than one loss at a time. be nice to yourself over the next months and years. 
What a load to deal with at any time of year but especially now.
Hugs to you, dear one
I'm so sorry your family has had to face so much of it in your family and, from the sounds of it, you've had little to no respite as one after another is afflicted with dementia.
Maybe give yourself and your siblings that respite over Christmas and then face the hard realities afterward. I've been through this with many families -- it's so hard being the one who's facing reality and jumping in to help. You deserve praise and warm hugs!
I hope you can listen hard to it.
I've been through the dementia of both my parents. It's so, so awful to watch people we love recede in that way.
I hope you'll take your time, and when you know how to broach the subject with your siblings, that will be the right time.
Hugs to you angel,
