Man with dementia spends 4 hours trimming green onions for his wife — and the internet is moved

A photo of a man with dementia carefully trimming a bundle of green onions has gone viral online.

A post shared Monday on the social media platform Threads showed a photo of neatly prepared green onions, accompanied by the caption: "My father-in-law with dementia trimmed all the green onions over four hours while my mother-in-law was out."

The photo showed a pink strainer piled with trimmed green onions, each stalk cleaned from the white root to the green tip.

The woman, identified only as A and believed to be the man's daughter-in-law, wrote that she had told him to stop but he insisted he was fine, pulled up a chair and finished the job himself. "Thanks to him, this daughter-in-law is over the moon," she added.

When one commenter asked why she had not helped, A said her father-in-law had told her not to. "He does the dishes and sorts the recycling at our house entirely on his own initiative," she wrote. "Thanks to him, our kitchen sink is spotless."

According to A, her father-in-law was a cook before his diagnosis, and his body still seems to remember — he handles vegetable prep, dishwashing and other kitchen tasks better than she does. He also washes the spoon and water bottle her young grandchild takes to daycare. However, the recycling he sorts tends to get mixed up, so she and her husband have to go through it again afterward.

A said keeping dementia patients' hands busy is important, explaining that small tasks can slow the progression of the disease.

She also noted that her father-in-law rarely expresses affection toward her mother-in-law in words. "I think this is his way of showing love," she wrote, adding that his love for his grandchild is equally strong.

Readers who came across the story flooded the comments. "This is what love looks like," wrote one. "You can tell what kind of life he lived before the dementia — so neat and beautiful," said another. Others added: "It seems like trimming those green onions was his way of saying, 'I care about you and I love you'" and "He may be suffering from dementia, but it looks like all that's left in him now is love."