reflections – Accepting the Gift of Caregiving

Grief, the last phase of caregiving

Almost two years ago my ten-year journey caring for My Love ended. At last, I could take time to process my grief from losing the one I adored.

I took that time as rehabilitation for myself.

I found the kinds of grief I had learned about previously, anticipatory grief and ambiguous loss and grief of dementia, were actually related to the earlier part of caregiving. Now I was going through a caregiving phase I came to call a gift of grief, except this grief was caring for me after my loved one was gone. I had never before thought about it like that – who had time?

I had no expectation of grief. As I was unraveling all that had happened, going through the gamut of emotions from my loss, my mind was flooded with thoughts that came to the surface. Grief transformed into a gift of time to process emotional aspects as they related to the caregiving period, and even farther back. Grief evolved into a gift that gave permission to unearth the when, how and why things happened as they had.

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(This full article, regarding Grief and Reflections will also be found on the drop down main menu under Caregiver Knowledge as a static page for easier finding. Blog pages just get more initial attention, so thus this format allows us to reach as many caregivers as might benefit. Thank you.)