CAREGIVING A LOVED ONE

After my husband’s heart attack I was coping, but then I felt overwhelmed by strong feelings of grief. My husband was alive, so how come I was feeling such grief and loss? The answer is, our life together had changed forever.

Susan, Age 64

Like Susan who wrote the quote above, I’m feeling grief and loss today. My husband of 25 years has needed a hip replacement for a while and he’s been unable to do many of things we used to do; walks in the woods, leisurely shopping trips; long car rides. While awaiting his scheduled hip surgery, he recently fell down our split level stairs as a result of his weakened right side and broke his ankle in two places. So now the hip surgery must wait for the broken ankle to set! In the meantime, he’s on crutches and I’m waiting on him and trying to make the best of it. I find my patience wearing thin and some significant sadness regarding our reduced lifestyle.

Older couples who have successfully negotiated the early stages of retirement may find themselves facing crises when illness or injury upsets the long-time balance of roles and responsibilities in their relationship. We mourn our old innocent ways...and our lost certainties. We face changes in lifestyle, financial security, retirement and our spouses’ physical capabilities. Perhaps, over the years you developed a certain sense of security and now the rules have changed. The upside is that a brush with mortality can reorder a couple’s priorities for the better. A health crisis
can pull some couples apart, intensifying existing conflicts. For others, the crisis provides an opportunity for enriching the relationship.

Millions of older American women are caring for a chronically ill husband or partner. This stressful endeavor can be hazardous to the caregiver’s health, especially in cases where the chronic disease is severe. Some caregivers begin to neglect themselves and unknowingly create stress-induced health issues. To maintain your role as a functional caretaker, you must pay attention to your own needs. I make an annoucement to my injured husband at least once a day that sounds like this: “Honey, it’s my turn now. I need at least one hour to take care of myself. Can I do anything for you before I go (downstairs, shopping, into the bathtub, etc.).”

Taking care of yourself helps you come to terms with this life changing crisis. Take charge of your life and don’t let your loved one’s illness or disability always take center stage. Honor yourself---you’re doing a very hard job and you deserve some quality time, just for you. When someone offers to lend a hand, accept their offer. Learn as much as you can about your loved one’s condition, promote your loved one’s independence, grieve your losses and allow yourself to dream new dreams.

There is great strength in knowing you are not alone so seek support from other caregivers. Check with your local hospital to see if they have caregiver support groups. You will also feel less fearful if you can involve the whole family. At weekly problem solving meetings, ask each person to describe his greatest concerns. Then discuss them. If your children are grown and living elsewhere, performing this exercise even once during a visit can break the tension and be extremely helpful.

If you are grieving over the loss of your former life with your husband or partner, honest discussion of the changes in your relationship can ease the pain. Remember that you and your loved one’s combined grief is both a process that make take some time, and an opportunity for deepening your relationship.

WHEN A HUSBAND DIES

“Staring at my ceiling,
counting dreams of you at midnight...”
Marilyn Houston, poet


I haven’t written in a while because it’s been a hard time. My good friend, Suzanne, lost her husband to the horrors in Haiti. He was a kind, warm, tall 60 year old Texan who had a calling to help those in need through the United Methodist Church Board of Global Ministries. Clint Rabb spent more than 55 hours buried in the rumble until they could release him by amputating parts of both legs. He lived long enough to be airlifted to a hospital in Miami where he died with his wife close by his side. It’s left me thinking about how I would respond to such a heart wrenching personal tragedy.

In Evenings at Five, author Gail Godwin wrote, “It was so quiet after he was gone; there was no music, and that voice wasn’t there.” As I read that passage I felt a stinging sadness. Although I deeply crave solitude and quiet, the absence of sound would be the hardest part of losing my husband.

Acceptance is difficult. My client, Andrea recalled the night after her husband’s funeral. “I couldn’t sleep, so I spent half the night cleaning the kitchen. I said the word “widow” out loud to myself, tasting it’s bitter sound in my mouth. Even though I’d been preparing to say this word for the two years since his leukemia was diagnosed, it was still a challenge to say it.” Brenda, a 61 year old client told me that for the first year and a half after her husband died she couldn’t concentrate enough to read a full paragraph at one sitting. “I couldn’t focus.” she explained. “When someone you love dies a part of you dies too. It’s almost three years now, and I feel as if I am just now beginning to think.”

Grieving is the hardest work you will ever do. Even though you may spend years caring for a chronically ill husband, you may not be emotionally unequipped for his death. When the final event happens, we are rarely, if ever ready. We hope for a miracle.

About 85% of wives outlive their husbands. Although loss of a spouse is one of the most stressful life events one can experience, in the longer term, most older women find that widowhood is accompanied by a positive shift into a new life phase. They want to take back control of their lives, test out skills they learned over a lifetime, exercise new feelings of strength and self-confidence that maturity can bring. Proust once said that “Happiness is good for the body, but it is grief which develops strengths of mind.” There are literally millions of women who no longer have husbands, yet most of them eventually do quite well.

The death of your husband, as hard as it is to think about, can ultimately present an opportunity for great learning---to do things one never did before. Barbara told me, “My husband’s death was, and continues to be, the most defining moment in my life. I’m the same person I was before but now I know who I am.”

Many women begin to enjoy their single life as soon as the sharp edges of grief have worn off. 72 year old Liz related her story. “My husband died of a heart attack. We were married for 41 years and he was my first love. I’m still lonely at times, but I’ve made some new single friends which is nice. I’m starting to enjoy life again.”

There is real danger in adopting grief as a way of life. If you do, you’re still making your husband responsible for your well-being. Another danger lies in putting your deceased husband on a pedestal which makes it easy to remember only the good so that going forward, no one else can measure up. You may be using this view as an excuse to prevent yourself from renewing your life and loving another person. Not everyone who is bereaved will experience the same things. The key task is to accept the reality of the death, experience the pain of grief, adjust to life without the deceased, and memorialize the loved one in order to move on.

When Suzanne is ready to hear it, I might read her this paragraph from one of my favorite authors, Natalie Goldberg. In her book, Long Quiet Highway she wrote:

“Whether we know it or not, we transmit the presence of everyone we have ever known, as though by being in each other’s presence we exchange our cells, pass on some of our life force, and then we go on carrying that other person in our body, not unlike springtime when certain plants in fields we walk through attach their seeds in the form of small burrs to our socks, our pants, our caps...This is how we survive long after we are dead.”

The word “widow” comes from the Sanskrit meaning “empty” and there is no doubt that Suzanne, Clint’s wife, will feel empty for some time. I can only cry with her, walk with her, and comfort her the best I know how. And when she’s ready to smile, I will smile with her and encourage her to fill up on what life has yet to offer.

What are your thoughts and feelings about this?