A New Year, A New Kind of Hope.

Written From The Heart

by Lynda Heaslip

The new year often arrives carrying expectations—fresh routines, goals, and a quiet pressure to “do better than last year.” But when you love someone who is aging or living with dementia, the new year asks something very different of you.

It asks for surrender in five key areas.

1. Letting Go of the Old Calendar:

   
   

Dementia does not follow a calendar. It does not reset on January 1st. What worked last year—or even last month or last week —may no longer fit. Familiar routines can suddenly feel rigid, frustrating, or even distressing for your loved one. This year, it may be helpful to loosen your grip on schedules that once felt necessary. Instead of asking, “Why can’t they still do this?” Try asking, “What feels possible today?” Routine can still be comforting, but flexibility becomes the greater gift now. Shorter days. Slower mornings. Fewer expectations. More pauses. When we surrender the idea that consistency must look the same as it once did, we make room for peace.

2. Releasing the Past Without Erasing It:

   
   

One of the most painful realizations caregivers carry is the constant comparison between who someone was and who they are now. “They used to…”, “They were always able to…”, “They loved doing…”

However....it is only grief that lives in those sentences. Honoring the past matters—but living there can quietly steal joy from the present. Dementia invites us to stop measuring worth by lost abilities and instead notice remaining capacities. Your loved one may no longer balance a checkbook, host family gatherings, or follow long conversations, but they may still smile at a familiar voice, hum along to a song, enjoy holding your hand, and light up at a shared memory—even if it’s fleeting.

The present moment, however brief, is where connection still lives.

3. Redefining “Doing” as “Being”:

   
   

So much of our relationship identity is built around doing things together. Dementia slowly changes that dynamic. This year, consider redefining what togetherness means.

Connection may now look like sitting quietly side by side, folding towels together (even imperfectly), looking at old photos without correcting the story, watching birds outside the window, or offering the same reassurance again and again.

These moments may not feel productive—but they are deeply relational. Being present is not passive. It is loving work.

4. Building a New Kind of Relationship:

   
   

One of the hidden invitations of dementia is the chance to build a deeper relationship with your loved one—not based on roles, history, or expectations, but on presence.

This year, you may find yourself becoming more patient. more attentive to nonverbal cues, more aware of tone, touch, and emotional safety. In this slower space, something tender often emerges. You may notice a softening—less striving, less explaining, more simply being with one another. No, this is not the relationship you planned, but it can still be meaningful. It can still be sacred.

5. A Gentle New Year Intention:

   
   

Rather than resolutions, consider intentions such as, I will meet them where they are, not where I wish they were..I will measure success by moments of peace, not tasks completed...I will allow grief and gratitude to exist together and I will receive connection in new forms.

Loving someone with dementia requires courage—not the loud kind, but the quiet courage of adjusting expectations again and again.

This year, may you give yourself permission to loosen the rules, soften the goals, and notice the beauty that still shows up—often unexpectedly—right here in the present moment; because even as memory fades and seeminly disappears, relationship does not: it simply changes shape.

Wishing you and your loved ones a peace filled New Year!