Every week, I volunteered at a care home and spent time with Ruth, an 84-year-old woman with advanced dementia who always called me \u201cClaire\u201d and spoke about our memories together. When I corrected her, the staff told me to play along, so I did. Six months later, Ruth passed away, and at her funeral, her son showed me an old photograph of a young woman named Claire. She had the same blonde hair and smile as me. He explained that Claire was his sister, who died in a car accident at just 19\u2014the exact age I was. His mother had never recovered from losing her daughter, and seeing me had allowed her to believe Claire had somehow returned. I stood there fighting back tears, realizing that without knowing it, I had become a source of comfort for a grieving mother who thought I was the daughter she had lost. 💔<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Every week, I volunteered at a care home and spent time with Ruth, an 84-year-old woman with advanced dementia who always called me \u201cClaire\u201d and spoke about… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12449,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n