The Gradual Grief
When I did a one year residency as a hospital chaplain, one of my units was palliative care. I visited with 12-18 patients and/or their families as the patient was dying or had died. I saw death more frequently and closer than I had ever imagined. But one thing I never understood was that the loss of a loved one was not abrupt. Yes, sometimes the loved one’s health declines gradually—cancer, Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s, heart disease—but the loss and accompanying grief seemed always sudden: the person was there, and then they weren’t.
My father turns 86 this year, and has lived to an older age than his grandparents, parents, brother, and one nephew. My mother—aside from her being functionally blind, and that the stage IV melanoma that was beaten into non-existence years ago WILL return at some point—is in reasonably good health, especially compared to where her own parents were when they were 86. But in many ways my parents are not the people I once knew.
One thing I’m learning about elderly/geriatric people is their personality quirks and foibles get cranked up to 125%. Mom has always been an anxious person; these days she “go[es] to pieces so fast, people get hit by the shrapnel.” She is so wound up that she can’t think things through like she used to, and I’ve found myself willingly taking on more responsibility for her, like financials and such. Dad was hospitalized for something pretty serious late last year, and not only hasn’t recovered his strength but stubbornly resists efforts to get stronger and has faded to a shell (to mix my metaphors) of who he once was. I spent a couple hours with him this past week and the person I see in my mind’s eye when I remember that visit is Dad, but the person I saw and talked with in reality looked like a ghost of my dad.
Something happened the other day that I found significant, and I found myself wanting to call my parents to share with them about it and then I realized…I kinda can’t. Neither of them have the cognitive capacity to understand or relate to what I share. I’ve lost a part of my parents, and I felt grief for it, and I am beginning to see and understand that the people we love, like my parents, often begin to leave us before they die, and the grief of letting go sometimes begins long before we’re gathered around their bed as they take their last breaths.
That’s what I’ve been feeling as I take on as much of the care of my parents as I can from 120 miles away. The pain of watching them decline is the pain of grief—I am beginning to learn how to say goodbye.
Mor Beal 