When I entered dad's room this afternoon, he barely reacted. The room was warm and the curtains were drawn. It seemed clear that dad had been left to sleep. I bent over and touched him, and told him who I was and that I'd come to visit him, that he just needed to rest and get well, and that we were all looking after him. No reaction. I counted his breaths and timed the pauses. No change.

Then something quite surprising happened. Dad was struggling to move his arms, trying to push them under the sheet, perhaps.
'What's up, dad?' I asked. And in a voice barely audible, I heard him say:
'I don't know what's wrong.' Probably one of the truest things he's ever said. It then occurred to me that it might be a good idea to bring mum in again.

I went next door and looked for her. At first it looked as if she wasn't in the common room. Then I saw her sitting on her own in a small circle of chairs in a back corner. I went over and spoke to her, startling her somewhat. She reached for my hand and stood up. We started to walk out and she seemed to be in very good spirits, smiling at most things and walking quite fast. Unfortunately, just as we got into dad's part of the village, one of the residents shouted out loudly, which made her jump, but even then she didn't get locked into that unfocussed anxiety that she often experiences.

Once inside dad's room, mum went straight to the bed. Dad appeared to recognise her, but there was little reaction.I cleared the chair and brought it up to the bed for mum and she began sidling out of the way, not realising that it was for her. When I got her settled I took one of dad's arms and tried to pull it nearer. He resisted initially, until I told him to relax his arm, then he let me place it by mum. Mum took his hand without being asked.

'That's mum holding your hand, dad,' I said.
I kept reminding them that they had known each other for nearly 70 years. Mum nodded. I don't know if she knew what I was talking about. I took a few photographs of them together. Neither of them seemed to really look much at the other except, in mum's case, when prompted.

After a few minutes, during which I reassured dad that we would bring mum to visit him often, and encouraged him to get better so he could get up on his feet again, I led mum back to her area. She was still cheerful, with no apparent concern for dad. She showed a lot of delighted interest in a baby that some visitors wheeled by in a pram. Back home, I took her to the desk and suggested that one of the staff might like to change her, at which mum shifted her attention to her, and I backed out again.

This was a great visit, unlike the previous one. Alone in a room of their own (despite one confused resident wandering in at one point) they were able to just be quiet with each other, undistracted by noises and movements. It seemed to do dad a bit of good and no harm to mum. And, on top of all that, it gave me something apparently useful to do.