In her Caregiver.com article, Rebecca Rushing, BSN, RN, discusses ways a caregiver can deal with his or her own grief and help other grieving family members. I was especially interested in this topic because of my grief experience after my dad died. I had come alongside my mom for most of the ten years she cared for him after an Alzheimer's diagnosis. When he died, the rest of the family gathered around the grieving widow, left me and my husband standing alone to clean out Dad's belongings from his nursing home room, and then most of them pretty much didn't want to talk with me in subsequent months about missing Dad. I realized then everybody grieves differently. I would have benefited from Rushing's advice to get grief counseling for myself.
Another aspect I wish I'd learned back then is Rushing's Point 4: Help them become more independent. My dad had been Mr. Fixit around the house. Plus, simply being taller and stronger than Mom, he could do things like change light bulbs in ceiling fixtures. Even with an Alzheimer's-addled memory, he was still clever. Once, they needed a new toilet, so Mom and I drove to Home Depot, bought a toilet, and had store workers lift the toilet into my SUV. When we pulled into their driveway, Dad rushed out because he was hyper-anxious whenever Mom was gone; he knew he depended on her for everything. So the three of us stood behind the vehicle wondering how the heck we were now going to get this 80-pound monstrosity out of the car and into their garage. Dad suggested, "Let's roll the rolling garbage bin out here, slide the toilet onto the top of the bin, and wheel the bin into the garage. The plumber can take it from there." Brilliant! Ten-ish years later, after a divorce, I have to figure out practical home ownership stuff that my husband always did. If I'd realized recently widowed Mom had been in a similar boat, I could have helped her more.
Rebecca Rushing's article (here), "5 Ways to Help Loved Ones Deal With Grief," is grace-filled and practical. Grief is a really hard, painfully lonely thing. Bottom line is we each deal with it our own way, but Rushing offers some helpful tips.
