My grandma, in the last ten or so years of her life,
suffered from Parkinson's which gradually progressed into Parkinson's Dementia.

For the most part it was actually pretty horrible; I can remember the first time we visited her in her dementia unit, surrounded by all the things that used to sit in the house she raised my mum and her four siblings in, which her and my grandad had to sell after she couldn't handle the stairs any more.

She was sat in bed complaining loudly and furiously that Ken (my grandad) hadn't been to visit her in weeks, when actually he had just visited that morning, like he did every day.

I was sixteen and none of my grandparents had died yet and for the first time I started to sense what it felt like to lose someone you loved.

But the brilliant part came at the end of this otherwise horribly depressing visit- we were all doing our goodbyes and after my brother, who was about ten at the time, pulled away from his hug, she grabbed his shoulder and earnestly reminded him how lucky he was, because he had "that special thing where you're a boy AND a girl!"

So far as I know that isn't actually true; the look of ten- year- old confusion on his face was priceless.
(Mr._F is not actually a man- this username is a lie!, Fri 3 Jun 2011, 12:35, Reply)