Mum with dementia recognizes her son and bursts into a happy song

Having your parents grow older to become like the children that they had once taken care of is heartbreaking. But it is also the circle of life. It is probably even worse when they get diagnosed with a condition like dementia or Alzheimer's and they start forgetting their loved ones with each passing day. 

One would believe that circumstances such as these would be filled with tears and grief. What is least unexpected, however, is laughter and songs. But that is how a woman named Ingrid and her son Sebastian decided to handle the situation. Their sweet interaction went viral and will surely bring a smile to your face as well.

Ingrid was diagnosed with dementia and was under the supervision of caretakers. At the stage of the disease she was in, she had forgotten what her own son looked like. Her son, Sebastian Terry took his mother out on a walk one day, arm in arm, when he deiced to capture her attempting to remember who he was. Sebastian asked his mother if she knew he was. His mother hesitated a little before saying, “You are a lovely carer.” Sebastian asks her, “What if I told you I was your son?” Ingrid looks surprised and thinks the young man was joking and tells him that her son was Sebastian. She even tells him that he did sound like her son.

Ingrid then gets a better look at the man she thought was a carer and bursts out laughing. "I'm your mum," she declares. "And you're my son." She thinks the whole situation is funny before Sebastian tells her that he is, in fact, her son. Ingrid, assuming he is still horsing around says, "You have the same name as my son." To this Sebastian says, " I am you son Sebastian." Ingrid can't help but laugh again and says, "I haven't seen you for a long time, my son." She then starts singing an improvised version of We'll Meet Again, a song made famous by English singer Dame Vera Lynn in the 1940s, with Sebastian's name.

The mother and son sing together with the modified lyrics, "Ingrid wants to meet Sebastian some sunny day, some sunny day because Ingrid loves Sebastian very much." Ingrid's upbeat spirit is contagious. “Well, my mom is the brightest star in the sky,” Sebastian told The Epoch Times. “She exudes love and happiness, she is always singing. She has always been, that all my friends love, all their parents love. She is just such a bright light, and she still is, even though her conditions very much changed over the last eight years or so.”

When Ingrid was diagnosed with dementia, Sebastian and his sister Pascal decided to make sure to create as many memories with her as possible before her regression could advance. “She loved the beach. So we take her down to the beach and go walking with the dog, my sister’s dog,” Sebastian said. “I did a talk in Hawaii, and we flew together. Afterward, I taught her how to surf at Waikiki.” When she finally managed to surf, she celebrated the moment and was even cheered by people at the beach. Ingrid couldn’t remember anything about the trip a few days later.

Around 50 million people around the world have dementia. There are nearly 10 million new cases every year. Dementia is a progressive or chronic condition that is characterized by deterioration in cognitive function. It affects memory, thinking, orientation, comprehension, calculation, learning capacity, language, and judgment, according to WHO. There is no cure for the disease. The only thing a patient with dementia can be given is a lot of care and support from the people around them. Sebastian lives in the US but regularly calls his mother and checks on her. He is the founder of 100things and is a motivational speaker urging people to live their best life.