Heartwarming moment former husband and wife with dementia are reunited in care home after 30 years apart
This is the heartwarming moment a former husband and wife with dementia are reunited in the same care home after a 30-year separation – and even agree to go on a date.
Nancy, 86, and Stan, 91, both from Edinburgh, married in 1957 after embarking on a ‘forbidden’ romance because her parents did not approve of their relationship.
However, when Nancy was in her mid-fifties, she was almost killed by one suffered a massive brain hemorrhage and underwent life-changing surgery that would ultimately lead to the demise of her relationship with Stan.
After their divorce, Nancy never wanted to meet anyone else, so she lived happily alone, while Stan met another woman in her seventies who became like a “second mother” to their three children.
However, when they both reached their eighties, they all began to develop signs of dementia to the point where they could no longer care for themselves. Karen, their daughter, decided to move Nancy near where she lived in the West Midlands.
Then around Christmas she also made the decision to place her father Stan, who fell while being cared for in Scotland, in the same home as Nancy, where she captured the heartwarming images of their reunion.
In the clip, Nancy tells Stan he “doesn’t look bad for his age,” while her ex-husband replies, “I recognize your face, but I couldn’t place who it was.” The couple then agrees to go on a date together and have a cup of tea.
The emotional scenes echo those of the cult Hollywood classic The Notebook, starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams as a young couple who fall in love in the 1940s. In the film, a retiree tells a romantic story to a woman in a nursing home, who later turns out to have been his dementia-stricken love interest all along.
Nancy, 86, speaks to her former husband Stan, 91, for the first time in 30 years after their divorce following her brain haemorrhage
Stan married Nancy in 1957 after they began a ‘forbidden’ romance as children
Towards the end of the footage, Nancy leans in to kiss Stan ‘for old times’
Nancy and Stan on their wedding day. Their granddaughter Sarah-Ashleigh revealed how Nancy’s family did not attend the wedding because they did not approve of their relationship
In a video posted on TikTok The viral clip of Karen’s daughter, Sarah-Ashleigh, which has been viewed 2.9 million times and received more than 200,000 comments, shows Nancy walking into Stan’s room as Karen films.
Speaking about the family’s decision to place her grandparents in the same care home, Sarah-Ashleigh, 36, told MailOnline: ‘We were so worried how this would go. It’s so nice to see them being friends again.
‘Dementia is a terrible disease, but it is precisely moments like these that we hold on to.
‘Grandma has a little more trouble with it in general and gets anxious and confused, but I think it has done wonders for her to have someone she knows.
‘She’s always looking for him (even when he’s sitting right next to her) and they sit together a lot and bicker like the married couple they used to be.
‘Love may not be the same kind of love forever, it changes forms, but it never goes away.
“Their marriage didn’t last forever, but just seeing them have a friendship again shows that love never dies.”
Scores of people flooded the replies section and shared their reactions to the emotional video, describing it as the “real notebook.”
In a later clip posted to Sarah-Ashleigh’s TikTok, Nancy can be seen sleeping in Stan’s bed as he fell asleep in an armchair.
As the memory of each other slowly returned, Nancy is heard saying to Stan, “You don’t look bad for your age.”
The couple, both born and raised in Edinburgh, took photographs when they were younger
One person wrote: ‘The brain has trouble remembering, but the soul doesn’t.’ Another said: ‘I think you might just witness them falling in love again.’
A third added: ‘Oh my heart….. “I better have a little kiss for old times sake”…. I’m crying…..xx’
A fourth also said: ‘This is so beautiful, glad they have each other, dementia is a terrible disease, my mother had dementia. Heartbreaking, but she kept smiling.”
The woman Stan met after his divorce from Nancy is still alive and she was described by Sarah-Ashleigh as a big part of the family.
However, when Stan’s dementia diagnosis worsened, they could no longer live together and had to separate.
She added: “Grandpa still asks for his darling back home and she is still a big part of the family, she misses him very much.”
In another clip on her TikTok, Sarah-Ashleigh showed Nancy sleeping in Stan’s bed while he slept in a chair. The pair have also since met and enjoyed several ‘dates’ together.
Stan and Nancy pictured together on the beach when they were younger
Stan and Nancy’s granddaughter Sarah-Ashleigh has said their time together has done ‘the world of good’ for her grandmother, who ‘gets anxious’
The couple pictured themselves celebrating Christmas together shortly after Stan moved into the West Midlands care home
The full footage shows Nancy walking into Stan’s room and asking “who is that?” before Karen says ‘that’s dad!’. Then, after putting on her glasses, Nancy tells Karen “is that your dad” before adding, “He doesn’t look bad for his age.”
After both Karen and Stan laugh, Nancy says, “Are you okay?” Take care of yourself and we’ll see you every now and then, eh?’
Stan replies, “I see you wandering around here. I recognize your face, but I couldn’t place who it was.’
Nancy then admiringly asks Stan if he would like to go for a cup of tea one day and ‘take her with him’, to which he says ‘yes’.
Karen says she’s going to get a chair from the other room before Nancy leans over and gives Stan a kiss “for old times” as she holds his hand. This prompts Karen to leave the room and cry a little.
Stan, who served in the army for the Royal Scots, wrote a memoir about his life and the ‘forbidden’ romance with Nancy, which Sarah-Ashleigh hopes to one day share with the rest of the world.