After my divorce, life was slowly starting to get back on track. But one thing I couldn’t shake was my ex-mother-in-law, Linda. She had dementia and, for reasons I couldn’t understand, kept showing up at my house. At first, I was patient with her. I would invite her in for a cup of tea, chat for a bit, and help her find her way home. But this happened so often that it began to wear on me.

I had no idea why she was constantly showing up at my door, especially considering we weren’t close even when I was married. One day, after another unexpected visit, I noticed her medicine bag sitting by the door. She’d forgotten to take it with her again.

Curious, and concerned, I peeked inside. What I found made my heart drop—there was a bottle of prescription pills I hadn’t seen before. It was a medication for severe memory loss and confusion, far more advanced than the condition I knew she had been diagnosed with. Something didn’t add up.

It dawned on me: Linda wasn’t just wandering to my house by accident. She was trying to make sense of the world in a way I hadn’t understood before. It wasn’t just the dementia that kept her coming—it was the loss of family, the ties that she had lost through the years, and a need for comfort that I hadn’t recognized.

That moment was a wake-up call for me. I couldn’t just brush off her visits anymore. It wasn’t about the divorce; it was about her needing help, and I had to find a way to give it to her. She wasn’t just showing up to annoy me—she was showing up because, in her mind, it was the only place she felt safe.