“Footprints in the sand”, whenever I hear this song it reminds me of my dear old Dad. Not that I need a song to remember him. He was the kindest, gentlest lovely man, who managed to spread his love equally, between my five siblings and myself. Today, if he’d still been with us, would have been his 81st birthday. He shared his birthday with our Grandson, so it is still a special day for us.

Although his physical body left us just over ten years ago, we had lost his wit and wisdom several years earlier. In the early naughties he started getting a little forgetful, like a lot of us as we get older. We didn’t think too much of it, until he started having visual hallucinations. Some were very real and very frightening to him at the time, but afterwards he remembered very little about it. Others were lighter and he would joke afterwards as he realised they weren’t real. Like the time he thought he saw a miniature elephant run across the garden. It was a wooden garden ornament carved in the shape of an elephant. It only lasted a few seconds and he realised immediately it wasn’t real. Although we chuckled along with him it was a really worrying time.

After numerous tests, scans and hospital visits he was diagnosed with dementia with Lewy Body. We had never heard of it, despite it being a very common form of dementia. His consultant was excellent and my brother and I had a very frank conversation with him about Dad’s condition and life expectancy.

Lewy body has the added complication of Parkinson’s like symptoms with tremors and stiffness of the joints. Dad was given medication to help ease the Parkinson’s symptoms, but this seemed to increase the hallucinations, so medication was frequently being adjusted or changed.

Initially Dad, had long periods where he was quite lucid and continued to drive, but to Mum’s frustration, as she didn’t hold a licence, we had to stop him, before he caused an accident. He enjoyed walking, but he started walking quite fast, with his head down and didn’t really take much notice of where he was going. One day he took himself for a walk and went missing. Mum had reported this to the police and several of us were out searching for him. Fortunately a kind passer by called in as they’d seen him marching up the middle of a busy road, oblivious to the traffic 😞. He was brought home in a police car. He would have enjoyed the excitement of the ride, had he had any notion of what was happening.

There is still no cure for this cruel disease. Dad would go to day centres to try to keep his mind stimulated, and prolong his lucidity. He enjoyed the activities and dancing. I vividly recall the last dance I had with him which was at my Silver Wedding Anniversay, two years before he left us.

Day centres and memory cafes still seem to be a big part of “treatment” today. There is a lot of research and more drugs are available to ease the symptoms, but unfortunately the outcome is still the same and life expectancy remains between 6 & 12 years.

Dad lived with the disease for seven years and we slowly lost the intelligent, playful, funny man we knew. It is so sad to see your childhood hero deteriorate before your eyes, and not know how much, if anything they understand of what is happening to them. I used to try to get Mum & Dad out each week, but it became increasingly difficult to manage him in and out of a car and it upset Mum when people would stare. As the illness progressed, he stopped really being able to hold a conversation with us, and got thinner and frailer as he started to eat and drink less and less. However his eyes still lit up when we visited, so we knew he still recognised and loved us.

Ten years on I still miss him, and often wonder, when I make a decision, what Dad would have thought. The song Footprints in the sand was released around the time of Dads passing and the words remind me of how I felt at that time. When I hear it played it still brings a tear to my eye, but he will live on forever, in my heart ❤️

So Happy Birthday 🎉 Dad, we’ll raise a glass today in your memory 🥂