Elder Care Connect

The Greatest Loss of Them All

Posted on 24. Nov, 2009 by admin.

Perhaps the hardest task you will ever be faced with is to help one of your parents cope with the loss of her spouse.  Naturally, this is going to be a traumatic time for the whole family because as much as mom lost her husband and the father of her children, you have lost your daddy and you have grief yourself.  So how do you help your mom and grandma to your kids get through this very difficult transition?

It will be a time when you will need the understanding and support of your spouse and kids as well.  And just as the grief you are coping with in yourself and in your now widowed mother is difficult, you also have to be strong and brave for your children as well.

This is the purpose of the funeral because through the good words of the minister, those not as close to the family feel closure that this good life has gone on to his reward.  If your dad was ill and going through a lot of discomfort, there is often a sense of relief that he is no longer suffering.  And if the family is strong in a religious faith, that assurance of the afterlife is a source of comfort as well.

Only you will be able to gauge how much support or comfort your widowed mother needs in the days just after the passing.  It’s important to remember that grief surfaces in strange ways.  Many times the real deep grief does not surface at the funeral or even in the days just after as family stays around to be close and go through group processing of the loss of a loved one.

It’s when family goes home and the routine of daily life sets in that you should plan to be very accessible to your parent.  That is when the emotions of grief will surface in the quiet and privacy of the home.  It might be advisable in this kind of situation that you live with the grieving parent for period of a week or two to help with the transition.

Another thing about grief is that it is selfish.  While we put a noble face on it and say we are grieving “for” the lost one, the truth is the grief is really for the one who remains because it is she who has to learn to go through life’s routines without that spouse.  By being present during mealtime and those little moments of the day, you can “talk through” the different times when your widowed parent remembers that the dearly departed was part of this part of life.

There will be a lot of rebuilding during those first months of being alone.  So you as caregiver can help that transition by not letting the times of loneliness be so long between visits.  Obviously, your parent will eventually have to learn to get through the rituals of life alone.  But be there for her so that transition is not so jarring.

But even if your parents was stoic at the funeral and only shows a happy face to the grandkids, there will come a time when she has to cry.  Be there for her.  Don’t try to come up with any “comforting words.”  Just being present, maybe doing the dishes or pouring each of you a glass of wine can be the biggest comfort you can provide.

Finally talk about the dearly departed.  Ministers know the value of talking about the fun, interesting and wonderful things about the dearly departed.  It is a way of reminding ourselves that he didn’t really go away.  The memory of him will be here forever in your hearts.  So take some evenings and sit down with that box of family photos and go through them with the widowed parent and laugh about the different events of your family history when you were just a little squirt and mom and dad were young and good looking kids themselves.

The joy of these times will be tremendously healing for the grieving senior citizen and for you too.  But by going through grief, healing, closure and moving on together, you bond with your parent and lay the groundwork for the important care giving challenges you and she will face together in the months and years to come.  But you will face them and you will conquer them because you are going to do it together.

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That Thing We Don’t Talk About

Posted on 24. Nov, 2009 by admin.

Have you ever heard the phrase, “The 200 pound gorilla in the room”?  It’s a phrase that refers to a topic that nobody talks about but it so dominates everybody’s thoughts.  Everyone knows the gorilla is there but nobody gets anxious because, after all, you don’t want to upset the gorilla.

There is a 200 pound gorilla in the room in any time being spent with a senior citizen.  It is a topic that is blatantly pertinent to anyone in their golden years but it is a topic that nobody talks about either because it’s too upsetting or nobody knows how to talk about  it. But it is a topic that weighs on the mind of your senior citizen mom and dad virtually every day.  The 200 pound gorilla in the room is death and the end of life issues that are ahead for every senior citizen at some point or another.

As the caregiver for your elderly mom or dad, you should be aware how heavily the topic we don’t talk about weighs on the minds of your parents.  If you  have lost one parent, the surviving spouse is even more aware of the issue.  But there are good reasons to remove the stigma from talking about end of life issues with your elderly parent.  That is because there are numerous end of life issues about which you must reach some decisions before that time actually comes along including

• The condition of the Will.
• Do not Resuscitate and other advance directive document decisions to give to end of life medical personnel.
• A review of insurance and the location of other financial documents that you, the executor of the Will or the person who has power of attorney will resolve.
• Any desires the senior citizen might have about funeral arrangements.

In order to be able to discuss the end of life and issues related to death, you will have to be at a point emotionally that you can deal with the topic yourself.  Many of us bury our thoughts of death in a mental trick we play that seems like we think we will not have to go through this part of life. We do that perhaps because we prefer to think about life or because we are uncomfortable about discussion of the afterlife and religious ideas.

So to get ready to be able to be a good caregiver and counselor to your aging mom or dad, you should sit down and get some peace and resolution about the topic yourself.  If that means confronting your religious anxieties, well, that is part of adulthood and those who are depending on you including your aging parents and your children may be looking to you for some answers in that area.  It will take some courage but face those issues so you can be ready to help your parents face them too.

If you have a religious faith and your parents share that outlook, this is the time to review the afterlife assurances that come from your religious upbringing.  By spending time with your mom or dad reviewing the doctrines of heaven and the comfort those religious texts brings, you can give them renewed hope and peace about the coming of death because they will know that passing from this life is not the end.

Don’t let the 200 pound gorilla stay in the room.  Confront the issue of death with your aging parent or parents and do so with compassion and kindness.  If you do, you will help your parent reach a place of peace and acceptance about what is going to happen that will benefit them for the whole of their golden years remaining on this earth.

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