Coming Back... From a Stroke

I have just been watching the wonderful Alan Bennett in the Arena programme "Alan Bennett 90 Years On" (BBC2 13.12.24).
He talks about his parents and their decline in old age, particularly his mother, who was eventually moved into a nursing home with dementia. And his father, who had nursed her and continued to care for her long after any ability to interact as a married couple had faded away.
Alan says, "My father would always be there on the stroke of 2 o'clock when it opened to visitors. I said to him, 'you've no need to go as conscientiously as that'. He said 'well, I have to go because your mam has lost herself and I know where she is, I know what she is and I have to be there when she begins to come back".
There is something inherent in love of another that must naturally trigger such devotion. I saw it in others a great deal during nearly three years of visiting Diane and of course applied the same logic - albeit instinctively - to my regular attendance at her bedside, whether in hospital or the care home; being there on the stroke of visiting time, two, sometimes three times a day, even if Diane was comatose. Hope over adversity perhaps?
One regular at the care home visited his wife every day, despite her screams and shouts and complete incoherence. He lived though for those rare quieter moments of apparent recognition when he could be a husband again, albeit fleetingly. It wasn't really the case, and both he and I knew it. But we maintained the positivity in pretence and he was bolstered by the thought that maybe, one day, she would start coming back to him, as Diane eventually did for me.
I was overjoyed to hear news recently from my regular car mechanic that his young teenage son, who has been immobile and effectively in a coma for years in a children's hospital, has begun to come back. He unexpectedly responded to his dad saying he loved him, by saying the same back. He showed me a video on his phone. It was fantastic. His family have been battling hard to ensure their boy was provided with the necessary care for what, to all intents and purposes, was beginning to look like a lost cause.
Whatever your situation, however bleak it may seem, I would subscribe to the notion that just because your loved one has lost themselves, you know where they are and who they are and you owe it to yourself to be there when they begin to come back.