Mom called saying she could not find her car. "Come help but don't tell anyone", she said. This happened several times before I accepted that mom had dementia. In talking with her, it was very apparent that she had been forgetting things for some time but had been working really hard to hide it. She begged me not to tell anyone and I started to cover for her, until one day she fell and broke her hip. Her dementia was getting worse. In a years time, mom died. She had no other illnesses. Sometimes I wondered, if I had forced her to get help sooner if she would have lived longer....