When Willie Goodhart died in January, in our tribute post, we put in a link to a wonderful piece written by his son Benjie during the 2010 election.

In it, he talked about what it was like growing up in a very political household.

It is one of those pieces that enrich your life.

Benjie has done it again with a beautiful article, written with so much love, about the progress of his father’s Dementia. It first became clear that something was wrong during a Today programme interview.

For us – my sisters, my mother and me – the door closing on Dad’s career marked the beginning of a new era: one that was by turns agonising, baffling, heartbreaking and, I must confess, comedic. Alzheimer’s affects everyone differently, including those around them – but the ability to laugh at its quirks and peculiarities sustained us all in the darkest times.

For almost 50 years of married life, Dad got up in the morning and brought Mum a cup of tea in bed. This came to a rather abrupt halt the morning her cup of tea consisted of orange juice, milk, and some potted shrimps all stirred together. My mother demurred, though Dad consumed his with alacrity and chided her for being fussy. At times like that, it is easier to laugh than to cry.

On another occasion, two years ago, Dad took me and my wife to the opera. An opera devotee, it was his last visit: as the lights went down for act three of a rather lengthy German comic opera, he called out in despair, “Oh God.” A few minutes later, he heckled (I suspect a first for the rarefied audience): “Get on with it!” My wife and I, being of reasonably sound mind, were inclined to agree. That was also the evening Dad looked at his diary, which he did every five minutes, for reassurance, and read “To opera with Benjie.” Then he looked up at me. “Are you Benjie?”

Benjie also wrote about the fantastic quality of care his dad received in the nursing home he moved into for the last year or so of his life and how the staff there remembered him:

An hour after he had died, peacefully and in the presence of people who loved him as he deserved, the night shift staff came in and whispered their quiet goodbyes to Dad. Then the day shift came in and did the same. When they spoke to us, many were in tears, and every one of them mentioned how polite, courteous and kind he was, and how fond they had been of him. My dad had hung on to his warmth and decency, even when everything else had left him. It was just another in a long, long list of reasons to be proud of him.

Again, it is one of those pieces you will be glad you took five minutes to read. In a week where Dementia and social care has been so much in the news, it is particularly relevant.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings