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The cost & courage of caring - stories that spark resilience.
There's a moment many adult
children fear in silence.
The moment the call comes and
someone says,
You need to come now.
Your parent has died.
Today we're talking about losing a
parent.
The fear before it happens, the
conversations we avoid before
goodbye,
and the life that continues after
they're gone.
For many people, that fear begins
long before the final days.
It begins when you notice your
parent getting older, slower, more
fragile, more dependent.
It begins when you start wondering
how much time is actually left,
what has not been said, and
whether you'll be ready when the
moment finally comes.
How do you ask your parent what
they want,
when they may want nothing to do
about talking about dying?
How do you say what needs to be
said?
How do you live with the
possibility that the ending may
not give you an apology,
the tenderness, or the closure
you'd hoped for?
Welcome back to the Caregiver's
Podcast.
I'm your host, Dr.
Mark Ropaleski, and you can call
me Dr.
Mark.
Our guest today is Angela
Caldwell,
a licensed marriage and family
therapist from Los Angeles,
California.
Angela, welcome back to the
Caregiver's Podcast.
Before we begin, please subscribe
or follow the show wherever you're
listening.
It's free.
It helps these conversations reach
more caregivers who need them.
Angela Caldwell, welcome back to
the Caregiver's Podcast.
It's great to have you back.
I hope you're well today.
I'm so happy to see you.
Thanks for having me back.
Well, as you know, we have this
tradition here where we jump right
in.
So let's get at it.
I like it.
Thinking about many adult children
these days,
the fear of losing their parent
really begins often before they're
actively caregiving day to day.
They may not be managing
medications or organizing
appointments and providing daily
care yet,
but they're always watching,
worrying, observing, embracing for
what's coming.
Is there an early part of the
caregiving experience that is
unique even before caregiving
begins?
It is so timely, this episode.
I know you reach out to me from my
clinical perspective, and I do
have an answer for you,
but I will say that I'm going to
give you a little personal
perspective, too,
because my husband and I are going
through this now as we speak.
So we are caregiving my
father-in-law.
I, as we go, he's more at the end
stages, and what it's doing to me
personally is it's making me look
at our healthy parents
who are not yet in the caregiving
stage, and I am noticing precisely
what you are describing.
I'm noticing almost like an
isometric bracing in my body, and
I am aware, and of course,
now this is me speaking
personally, but I'm aware
clinically.
Yeah, there's, so what gets
stirred up is a fear we carried
when we were very, very little
and then repressed in order to be
functional humans in the world.
There's an interesting perspective
I'd like to offer you here,
and it's the perspective of
denial.
Now, denial is considered a bad
thing, right?
We say that someone's in denial,
you know, it's considered, it's
one of the stages of grief, as you
know,
but it's also considered a bad
thing when we say like, oh,
they're just in denial of, you
know,
how much they're sabotaging their
life, or they're in complete
denial of how bad this guy is for
them that they're dating,
and we understand denial to be a
bad thing, and sometimes it is,
you know,
so it certainly speaks to a lack
of self-awareness.
But there's a really fascinating
perspective that denial is
adaptive in some ways,
and the denial of the reality of
death is adaptive.
Now, stay with me here.
If you think about it, we all know
on some level that we could die
right now, right this second.
It is possible that a piano can
fall on my head, that there can be
a natural disaster,
that I could have a heart attack,
that at any moment I could die.
Now, if I had to live with that
knowledge consciously all the
time, my anxiety would be through
the roof.
I would not ever want to go in my
car, go out of my house.
I would have to live in a padded
cell.
So in order for me to be a
functional, contributing citizen
of the world,
I have to go into a little bit of
denial about that.
And what I mean by that is every
morning or every night, I have to
say to myself,
I'll probably be okay.
I'm going to live tomorrow.
And that makes me able to make
plans.
I can make, you know, appointments
to see you.
I can make lunch plans with a
friend.
I can make vacation plans because
I'm going to just go into, I won't
die.
I won't die.
I'll be fine.
I'll wake up tomorrow.
Things will be okay.
I'm going to be okay.
When in reality, I don't know if
that's true.
I'm not sure if that's true.
So I have to go into some level of
denial for the rest of my life.
So when I, so let's go, let me
back up a little bit to the, to
the kid phase.
When we're very young children, we
have a terror of our parents
dying, terrified of it.
We don't always word it in a
sophisticated and elegant way, but
we're terrified of it.
And the more we have experience on
the planet, the more we keep
waking up the next morning
and seeing that our parents are
waking up the next morning, the
more effective this death
denial can be.
So then we can kind of forget
about it and just assume
everybody's going to be okay.
And what happens is we go through
our entire lives with that sort of
death denial, just
assuming everything's going to be
okay.
We get what therapists like to
call a mortality check.
We get a mortality check when
something scary happens, like
maybe you get into a near car
accident
or an actual car accident.
You know, you might get a
mortality check if someone close
to you, you know, almost drowns
or has a, has a, has a health
crisis or something and you get a
mortality check.
We get a mortality check about our
parents as we get older and older
in life.
And it usually happens in one of
two ways.
Either we simply become more
conscious because we're getting
older and we're starting to move
into the latter stages of our
life.
When we start thinking about our
own mortality and it sort of
occurs to us, oh my goodness,
they're going to die.
So what happens is it sort of
reawakens this childhood fear that
we had repressed our entire
lives.
And the second way that can happen
is that they might have some kind
of crisis.
Our parents might, you know, go
into, like I said, you know, my
dad had a heart attack and
that's so scary because people die
of heart attacks.
And then I go into this sort of
reawakening of an old childhood
fear.
Oh my gosh, my daddy, my daddy
could die.
And I experience it in the
beginning the way that I
experienced it as a child.
I experienced a ground shaking
terror because what is awakened is
the old dependency I had
for my very survival.
It takes a minute for me, for
adults, for us, to sort of do the
right math and let our
logic kick in that, okay, it's
okay.
I don't need my daddy anymore.
Now he's my father.
Now I can accept this sort of
natural courses of life.
But I think this is a long answer
to your question, but this, I
think you said sort of a beginning
stage, an early period.
The preclinical phase, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Preclinical phase.
It's that.
It's an awakening of a dormant
fear.
It's interesting because I just
came back from four days of
caregiving in Montreal with
my mom, who's 86, and sort of
doing relatively well, but she has
a few ailments.
But at the same time, you know,
with that lens, as you described,
sort of honed in and you're
just sort of watching and
processing and sort of managing
that fear.
But all the while, it gives an
opportunity for inroads
conversationally about certain
things maybe that you haven't had
time to talk about anymore or yet.
I lost my dad in 2007 after he
took down the Christmas
decorations and died in his chair.
There was no chance for anything.
So it's really interesting to be
comparatively experiencing what I
went through with my dad
and now a more gradual process
with my mom.
But, you know, for many adult
children, losing a parent is one
of their biggest silent fears.
What are they really afraid will
happen when that parent's gone?
That they'll be all alone.
That's the fear.
The fear is an existential
abandonment fear.
It's so interesting because I work
with, well, I'm a family
therapist, so the types of
families
that I work with are not exactly
the functional families, right?
So I work with a lot of problem
families.
And even in those families, even
in families where there's
hostility and tension between
adult
child and parent, even when things
seem not great, the idea that I
could still pick up the
phone and call my mom, that I
could still reach out and talk to
my dad, there's something
childlike and comforting in that.
My client recently said this
thing, and it really stuck with
me.
I find it to be really profound.
She said that she didn't realize
that she perceived herself as a
daughter, as a girl, until both
her parents died and then she
became a woman.
And she said to me, I know how
silly that sounds.
I've been a woman my whole life.
Of course I'm a woman.
But I became a woman when I
reached the top of the hierarchy.
So now there's no one above me.
Now there's not sort of a
comforting thought in my head.
Even if I don't use it, they're
like, well, I could always ask my
mom.
Well, I can always call my dad.
There's sort of a safety net.
And when they die, we have this.
And you know, it sounds
irrational, but we have this, oh
my God, I'm all alone.
I had one client say, I'm
orphaned.
Now this is a 60-year-old man.
And he kind of laughed at himself.
He said, I can't believe I'm
saying that, but I feel like an
orphan.
I've lost my, now what do I do?
And he's a perfectly successful,
functional human.
But he, that word that he used, I
think is so appropriate.
There's a somewhat irrational
terror that we're all alone now.
We've been abandoned.
Our parents are gone.
Alone and we need to be the
expert.
on every topic, because we have no
one to call.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So why does the death of a parent
sometimes feel like the loss that
officially ends childhood,
even if childhood ended a long
time ago?
Oh, we're going to need days to
discuss that.
We got time.
And I think our listeners do too.
So, I think it was, I don't, I'm
going to get it wrong.
It was Freud or Adler.
It was one of the old guys who
said that, he said this funny
thing that is so true, and
I hope it resonates with your
listeners, that the safest we have
ever felt in our entire
existence was in the womb.
That was the safest we ever felt.
And then we came out of the birth
canal and it all went downhill
from there.
So, even if you're in a fantastic,
loving relationship, or if you
have a great life and you're
comfortable
and successful, you've never been
more safe than when you were
inside the womb.
And if you think about it, and I
like to kind of joke with my
students about this, well, yeah,
your needs are met the moment you
have that.
You don't even, you have
everything you need.
You don't even have to chew.
Your food goes directly to your
stomach.
Like, all of your needs are met at
the moment you need them, and it's
cozy and safe and
it's warm.
You may not even know you have
needs, right?
Exactly.
I mean, how wonderful is that,
right?
So, I think it was Freud, but he
sort of half-jokingly made this
comment that we sort of, we come
out
of the womb and then we spend our
entire lives trying to get back
in, right?
So, what we do is we find
ourselves, I mean, think about
like, you know, the part of your
life of courtship when you're
dating and how those early, what
we call the honeymoon period
of relationships, well, if you
look closely from his perspective,
that period is, oh my
God, it's here, it's happening.
I'm here, I'm safe, and I'm warm
again, and I'm having all my needs
met at the moment that
I need them, and this is it.
I found my way back home.
All this to say, that attachment,
that's what the attachment
theorists call it, that
sort of neurological association,
that intrinsic memory that we have
of being completely surrounded
by a parent, it stays with us.
Isn't that weird?
It stays with us.
It stays with us, metaphorically,
our whole lives, and I'm telling
you, even if you have
a bad relationship with your
parent, there's still a fantasy in
your mind that we hold
on to, that we are wrapped by our
parents.
It's the ultimate cuddle, right?
Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I love
that.
The ultimate dose of oxytocin
comes in the womb.
Oh my gosh, yeah.
So when they die, we, again, it's
irrational, but we can all relate
to it.
When they die, we go, oh my God,
I've lost the womb.
Well, we haven't had it our whole
lives, right?
Like, we only had that for nine
months.
But now it's sort of, it's a
jarring, almost like when glass
breaks in the middle of the
night and you kind of are jarred
awake.
It's like an awakening of, oh,
it's really gone.
Like, for real, it's gone.
You know, when a parent's aging
and declining and living with
serious illness, an adult child
can start living with the feeling
that the call could come just
about at any time.
But what does that kind of waiting
do to a caregiver before the death
has even happened?
You know, that really, that's
going to be a case-by-case answer.
That's going to depend on any
caregiver's level of their own
personal anxiety.
So if you're, you know, the more
anxious of a person you are in
general, the more that,
you know, if we think of it, if we
try to scale it.
So let's say we have a very
non-anxious person at a one and a
pretty anxious person at a five
or a six.
If you're bracing for bad news, it
probably notches you up a few,
right?
But so like for a person who's not
very anxious, they'll become a
little bit, but a person who's
pretty anxious will become very
anxious.
So there's, you're going to see
some, I have a colleague who calls
it body locking.
You're going to see some tension
in the body.
You're going to start noticing
people complaining of being sore
or stiff.
And that's, that's sort of your,
that's your system reacting the
way we react when we get
flooded with cortisol or when
we're under pressure, we sort of
lock up.
And so people will kind of notice
it in their body first.
Something that's kind of
interesting that happens to
caregivers is because their focus
is outward,
is external, they start missing
internal cues.
They, they, they forget to eat.
They, they don't respond to cues
of thirst.
They, they, they, they don't get
enough sleep.
They're, they're, they're bracing
for something for an external
stimulus.
So they are not attending to
internal stimuli.
So you see, and you probably see
this all over the place.
You see self-care start to go down
a little bit.
You're in the external scanning
mode when you're just
hyperadrenergic and full of
cortisol and
So how does someone carry the fear
of losing a parent without
actually letting that fear
steal the time they have left with
them?
My goodness, I might get a little
emotional here.
There's a, there's a magic word.
It's such a simple answer.
When I say that, it's easy for me
to say, real hard to pull off.
That stage that we spend so much
time talking about called
acceptance,
That's a really complex and
beautiful arena, that, that, that
abstract concept of acceptance.
Um, everyone is going to be able
to accept a small part of, of
loss.
Um, everyone's going to be able
to, for example, you know, we're,
if you're adults,
we're unlikely to go into
childlike denial.
So we can accept that it's a fact
that someone's going to die.
If during that, that sort of
bracing phase, as we're calling
it, this, this kind of like
waiting for the bad phone call.
If caregivers can be very
attentive, and I, I almost, I wish
that I could make this like
a daily meditative part of our
culture.
If caregivers could be more
attentive to their own exercise of
accepting, that it's okay.
That it's, oh, if I get the call
today, it's okay.
It's okay.
This, I've gotten what I could get
out of this relationship.
I've, I've done what I can do on
the, up to this day.
Um, an acceptance, not just of the
loss of someone, not just of death
as a concept,
but an acceptance that we only
have so much time.
So all of this unfinished business
or things I didn't say, well, you
did the best you could
with the time that you had.
And that's, that's accepting the
reality of being human, the
reality of human condition,
the reality of human
relationships, um, accepting that,
yeah, you might not have gotten to
get in
all the final words or, or
complete all the projects and the
tasks or, or be able to work
through these old conflicts and
acceptance, but that's life.
That's okay.
It's okay.
Um, religion helps a lot of my
clients, my, my more religious
clients lean on religion
during those times that helps them
with acceptance, accepting that,
um, uh, the Judeo-Christian
religions have an idea that, you
know, God will, you know, protect
them.
They'll, they'll go off to heaven
and they'll be in the next place.
My, um, I, I have some, some
polytheistic, uh, clients and they
both, they have, they're a
more nature religion.
They accept like, okay, well, the
spirit will go into the trees and
into the ground and all
around me into the air.
Um, so for your listeners who are,
who are religious, I would say
leaning on religion can really,
um,
actually enhance your last days
with your loved one.
They can make them better because
religion helps us to accept.
And for the non-religious clients,
um, accepting that this is, um,
that this can be a beautiful
part of life, that it's, that,
that there's, there's some beauty
in, in those last days.
Um, and you don't have to, uh,
overwhelm yourself by trying to
make the best of them or trying
to,
trying to pack up all the old
business or, or complete all the
old projects or say all the
old things.
It's, it's going to ruin it.
Accepting that you're human, that
your loved one is human and you
did what you could with
the time that you had.
And that's good enough.
And that's okay.
That really echoes the last thing
that Greg Fougere said on an
episode some, uh, some time
back is that you are enough,
you've been enough.
And I think, you know, when you
think about how strapped
caregivers are for time and we
see it in comments, social media
and their correspondence with us,
there's a level of
frustration when the self-care
lists become long and there's that
permeating concept of
just, I have no time to take care
of me, but a meditation, as you
described, that acceptance
and that I am enough and I've been
enough and we will be enough to
get through this.
this is so powerful and could
really dominate the self-care
to-do list in a meaningful way
if chosen.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That could be, that could be the
self-care itself, you know?
You know, caregivers are so often
expected to be practical and I
think they manage appointments,
ask questions, organize care and
make decisions in a very masterful
way.
But inside that role, they may
feel like the child who's
terrified of losing mom and dad.
What happens when the capable
adult and the frightened child are
actually both present in the
same room at the same time?
What a great question.
Mostly nothing.
Mostly nothing.
It's okay.
It's all right.
Probably for the caregiver.
When I say mostly nothing, I mean
on the outside.
I don't think anyone's going to
really notice.
For the caregiver, however, that
can be real confusing because the
child is driven by emotion
and the adult is driven by logic
and practicality.
And there can be, I've seen, I've
seen in myself and my clients,
I've seen, there can be
some really unhelpful shaming
going on.
I'm embarrassed to admit to you
that when I need to be taking care
of my father-in-law and
I get emotional, I can hear a
nasty little voice in my head
saying, oh, don't be a baby.
And so that doesn't show up on the
outside, but on the inside,
there's a conflict there
with my little girl that's crying
and sad and wants to throw a
tantrum and my adult who
needs to make sure that the nurse
gets here on time because if he's
not nebulized by this
time, he won't be able to take his
medication.
I mean, you know, and the adult in
me has no patience for this.
Can I tell you this little side
story that my daughter, my
daughter, she writes little
story when she was real young,
five and six years old, she wrote
stories and she wrote
a story one time and it was called
No Time for Owl.
And I did not realize it was this
small moment that we had where I'm
the practical, logical
adult and we were trying to get
out the door and we're late and I
forget what it was, but
it was, we couldn't be late.
And I'm telling her to grab her
shoes and I forgot my bag and we
need breakfast.
I need to grab breakfast.
We're going to have to eat it in
the car.
And she trips and falls and she
goes, ow.
And I turned around and I said, no
time for ow.
And she, and it's really stayed
with her so much that years later,
I read this story called
No Time for Owl.
And I think that little anecdote
from my child rearing, you know,
in my home, I think that's
what it's like for a caregiver.
I think when you have the little
girl present and the impatient,
practical adult present,
there can be some neglect, maybe a
little emotional neglect of the
part that's scared, of the part
that's sad.
And I think the best thing to do
about that is take a breath and
step outside and have a
good cry or a good moment, you
know, and realize that crying
doesn't last very long.
We only cry for a couple of
seconds usually or a couple of
minutes and then we kind of pull
ourselves together, but maybe for
your listeners to hold in mind
that in those times, you have
to be a good parent to your little
self.
You have to be a good nurturing
parent to your little self.
And you can still get the
practical stuff done.
There is time for ow.
And there may be a series of
little ows that culminate in the
final loss itself, but maybe
addressing those actually makes
the highly capable caregiver
actually much more capable of
navigating
that emotional journey.
Yeah, I think so.
I think you get to see it.
The practical side gets to almost
check it off the list.
Like, okay, I gave myself a hug.
Now, I have a lot of real estate
in my mind now.
I can focus on this until next
time.
Now, for some adult children, the
coming loss also feels, and you
alluded to this earlier,
that last chance to hear the
apology, the acknowledgement, the
blessing, the honest conversation
they've
wanted to have for years.
How does that change the way
someone prepares for a parent's
death?
The biggest change that I have
observed is it is not a good
change.
It puts the caregiver in a hurry.
And that doesn't help anybody.
The caregiver starts to feel
hurried and rushed.
There's a, we mentioned it before,
the pressure of wanting to, of
realizing the deadline's
approaching
and we need to get this done
before the deadline is
unnecessary.
I like to have my families
confront their fears.
So have you ever noticed when we
use that what if phrase, we hardly
ever answer ourselves.
So we say, what if, what if he
dies?
And I try to help my clients face
it.
So I say, okay, well, let's, let's
answer that.
So what if he dies?
What if he dies and you don't get
the final conversation?
You don't get to say what you
want.
You don't get to hear what you
wanted to hear.
What, what if, then what?
And I have them, and I encourage
your listeners to really let
yourself walk down that path.
So what does that look like if I,
if I don't get this thing that I
want,
or I don't get to finish something
or, or if, or if there's, there's
business left over, then what?
And I will tell you that almost
all the time, when you get to the
end of that path, that exercise,
the answer is nothing.
It's okay.
And if you can do that, what it
does then is then you look back at
this pressure you're putting on
yourself
and you can release it as you say,
oh, if I don't get the apology, if
I don't get to work through this
conflict,
if I don't get to finally say this
thing I've been wanting to say my
whole life, that's okay.
It may also allow you to be that
much more present for the time you
have left if you can unload that.
And it's really nice to sort of
see that, that sort of thinking
that's out there that, you know,
85% of the things we worry about
never happen can even apply to
that niche of caregiving and those
fears as death approaches.
And it's so universally adaptable
and certainly an exercise that's
coachable.
Yeah.
So I appreciate your call out to
the listeners to explore that.
I mean, how do we begin to accept
as a caregiver that you may need
to actually grieve the parent
without ever receiving the repair
you'd hoped for that would come
before the end?
Can we grieve with unresolved
agenda items?
Yes.
Yes, we can.
Yes, we can.
We do it.
We do it whether we want to or
not.
When we face loss and grief, we
face a truth of the human
condition.
Loss, grief, grief is not orderly
nor elegant.
And we don't like that.
The grieving process, the losing
process is disorganized.
It's messy.
It's often nonsense and
irrational.
And this is very unsettling to
human brains.
We don't like this at all.
Crying in the car while you're
parked or you're stopped at a red
light?
Like that.
Yes.
Where does that come from?
And before they've even died and
kind of going like, wait a minute.
You know, the time, this is not in
order.
This is not how this goes.
The most helpful thing that you
can do in those moments is realize
that what you're trying to do is
create an order to something that
has no order.
And that is true of most of life.
I, you know, I'm sure you know
that exercise where you draw the
circle of control.
You draw a circle and in the side
of the circle, you write the
things that are under your
control.
And outside of the circle, you
write the things that are not in
your control.
And clients giggle all the time
because they realize what's inside
of the circle are maybe two or
three things.
Everything else is outside of the
circle, right?
And so this idea that we want this
to be orderly and organized and we
want it to be elegant and
articulate is sort of a fool's
errand.
And there's only a few places in
life that that's going to work
out.
I joke with my husband that, you
know, he can be messy on his side
of the room, but my side of the
room is the only place in my life
that I can control.
And so I would like that to be
organized and orderly because
nothing else in my life is
orderly, even if I have a calendar
and an appointment book and a
stopwatch and a schedule and an
idea of how I'd like my day to go.
In that time, when we are trying
to figure out how are we going to
grieve without these things being
done, sort of accepting, well,
you're not getting something that
you wanted the way that you wanted
it and you'll be fine because
that's been most of your life.
Most of our lives have not gone
the way that we wanted them to go
and we were fine.
And I'm noticing I keep answering
your questions in the same sort of
realizing at the end of the day
that it's going to be okay.
And we don't think that in the
moment.
We don't think it's going to be
okay.
We think it's going to be awful.
We think we're never going to
survive it.
And when you really face the fear,
you look closely at it, you see,
oh, it's messy and it's out of
order and non-sequential and it
didn't happen the way I wanted it
to.
And it's not happening the way
that I wanted it to.
And that's okay.
I'm okay.
I'd like to change gears a little
bit and focus a little bit on the
conversations that occur before
the final goodbye.
And as you know, many adult
children know that they need to
ask their parents what they want,
what matters to them, what should
happen if their health changes.
But starting that conversation can
be really difficult and maybe
could even feel like betrayal,
especially if naming death means
in the parent's mind that the
child's giving up on the parent.
Why are these conversations so
hard to begin?
Yeah.
Well, we want to believe that
we're going to live forever.
So there's that sort of simple
answer.
And we don't want to believe that
this is real and true.
Before I answer, I do, I want to
refer, direct your listeners to
these, I can give you one example,
but I know there's several
examples of these booklets and
these programs that are put out.
One, the one that I'm familiar
with is called Caring
Conversations.
And the idea is that you're
supposed to have these
conversations before any of this,
when your parents are young still,
when they're in their 50s and 60s.
And starting the conversation way
early when parents are very
healthy, that actually sets a
precedent in the relationship that
death is something that we openly
talk about.
And so you revisit the
conversation from time to time.
Or if there's a hospital stay, you
say, hey, is there anything you
want to change in those answers
that we came up with together?
And it becomes a sort of rule in
the relationship.
In this relationship, we openly
talk about death and what happens
when we die.
So the first thing I want to say
is there's a way to avoid that
trepidatious feeling of later in
life by starting much, much, much
earlier with those conversations.
And we did that with my
father-in-law.
My husband was the one who found
the program.
And I loved it so much that I went
home and did it with my very
healthy parents at the time.
And, you know, when you're young
and, you know, I think my parents
were in their 60s or early 70s or
something and no health issues
really.
And at that time, it's a much
easier conversation to have
because it's still in the abstract
because you still have your
delusion of immortality at that
time.
But I hope that, you know, it sets
the precedent for those who have
not done that.
And there are those families out
there who are really
non-communicating families where,
you know, silence is the tone and
we don't talk about that, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Those are harder.
This is, I don't, I worry that I'm
going to sound glib here and I
don't mean to be.
If you're a member of one of those
families, be the one to say the
word.
Be the, be the, be the, speak.
Like, speak the word and say out
loud, we need to talk about your
death.
We need to talk about your
passing.
That's scary in those families
because that's the D word and we
don't talk about that.
And there's a lot of fear about
how you'll be perceived by your
family.
You'll be perceived as
belligerent.
You'll be perceived as uncaring
and insensitive.
You'll be perceived as
materialistic.
You just want to, you're just
focused on the money and the
inheritance.
Um, you'll be perceived as, um, as
obnoxious.
You know, there's, there's all
these fears about how you'll be
perceived.
And I think the talk about death
trumps how you'll be perceived.
Try to set, try to, try to realize
you're going to be perceived how
you're perceived.
If you can set that aside and be
the one who says the scary word
and who starts the conversation.
And I bet that months later, years
later, you'll actually be the one
who is thanked for having the
courage to get those conversations
started.
I say that with, with, with
certain families that where, that
are, there's more tension and
family conflict.
In other families where there's
still a silence rule, but there's
not as much tension and conflict.
In those families, the person who
speaks, the person who says, hey,
we need to talk about death.
Or we need, you know, hey, we need
to make some plans about what,
what this looks like.
The rest of the family members
breathe a sigh of relief.
Usually that someone broke the
ice.
Someone finally said it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so if you're from one of those
families, I think I want to say,
have no fear.
You're going to be, you're going
to be a savior, but to be the one
that actually opens the door.
But how does the adult child bring
up not just death, but decline,
final wishes and responsibilities
without actually, you know,
worrying that the parent's going
to say, hey, you're rushing things
here.
I think the best strategy is to
make it about you.
And what I mean by that is not,
don't make it selfish.
What I mean by that is, is saying,
hey, I, I am scared of the day
that I lose you.
I'm scared of losing my parent.
I, I want you in my life forever.
And so since I'm scared of it,
what will help me not be so scared
and stop thinking about it, what
will help me be in the present and
with you,
is knowing that there's a plan.
And so if you could do this favor
for me and let me know that
there's a plan, now I can settle
and be present with you and enjoy
this relationship and, and, and,
and have, have these, these
experiences with you.
I can imagine that conversation
may need to have a couple of
variations, but at the same time,
maybe even some repetition to chip
away at some of the exterior that
some parents may have that is part
of their shield and how they've
coped with life until now.
So I imagine if you try once and
you don't quite hit the ball out
of the park, but keep trying, keep
swinging.
Keep trying and maybe experiment
with, um, with your timing.
The first time, did you, did you
choose a bad moment where, were
you, you know, was there, were
your, were your parents sleep
deprived or hungry?
Um, or did you choose a time, uh,
that there wasn't, there, there
wasn't really enough time to have
the conversation and your parent
felt sort of pressured and rushed?
Um, did you choose a time, uh,
that was too soon after a
hospitalization or a surgery?
Um, so play with timing there.
And, and I like what you said.
If, if it doesn't, if at first you
don't succeed, keep choosing
different moments.
Keep, keep trying.
Um, your parents know that they're
going to die.
I'm a parent.
I know that I'm going to die.
All parents want to die before
their children.
We know this.
We, and if, and if it goes the way
we hope, we will.
We will die before our children
die.
And so I think your parents,
whether, no matter, no matter what
their level of willingness is to
talk about it, they know.
They know that they need to make
some plans.
We, we all know that we need to
make some plans.
They might not be verbose about
it.
They might, um, they might give
you answers like, uh, well, I
don't know.
You decide.
You decide what you want to do.
Um, I have a, I have a elderly man
that I work with.
Um, and I, I like him because his
take on it is very, he doesn't
talk about it.
He doesn't want to talk about it.
He's funny because he openly talks
about how he's terrified of death
and doesn't want to think about
it.
Doesn't want to talk about it.
But at the same time realizes when
it happens, he doesn't care
because he'll be gone.
So you guys decide what you want
to do because the funeral is
really about you and the burial is
really about what you want to do.
Um, be, be open to the idea that
your, your parents might be, um,
more savvy than you realize.
Well, and it doesn't automatically
brand them as being careless in
terms of getting their wishes and
their affairs in order.
They may be, you know, high, very
high functioning up until that
point.
But facing those next level
decisions and discussions just
really forces that facing of their
own mortality.
But what happens when the adult
child facing, when, when the
parents avoidance is so strong?
Like, it can just leave everyone
else in the family carrying the
uncertainty together.
And that can be pretty draining
too for a family.
I, yeah, that's, um, I, I have an
answer to that.
I don't know how popular my answer
will be because I think it might
be a little Texas of me.
Um, if the parent is being
avoidant and, and I'm, my cousin
is going through this kind of
refusing,
refusing to sit down and have
talks, refusing to answer.
Um, I, I'm, I say strong arm it.
I say, okay, we tried.
We tried to play with the
different timing, different
moments.
We tried to pick a different, uh,
mood for you to be in.
We tried to pick a different, uh,
and not to the parent, but for the
loved ones to get together
and say, okay, let's at least have
a plan.
Let's, let's all get together and
have a plan for what we think
should happen, how we think
the matters should be settled.
Um, the reason I, I'm in favor of,
I know, sort of an abrasive
approach, um, is because
having a plan, you have no idea,
you will be astounded at what
having a plan does to your,
to your tension, to your, to your
anxiety.
Even if the plan doesn't come to
fruition, having a plan, feeling
like, okay, I know what
to do if the worst happens.
It really calms the system.
It really kicks in the
neuropeptides that make you start
to breathe again and be present.
I also wonder, I'm thinking of
particular families that I work
with, you got to do a
self-check here, guys.
Is the reason that your parent is
avoiding this is because you're
being too aggressive?
Is because your anxiety is coming
out of your pores?
If you're able to give yourself a
plan and breathe, your parent
might experience you as calmer
and more approachable and, and
make it easier, make the
environment easier to, to discuss
something sensitive.
I like how you brand that.
And, you know, it's not a one-off
conversation that's written in
stone.
Ironically, the death plan is a
bit of a living organism.
Right.
I love that.
That's, that's, that's, you know,
that's a great irony.
Yeah.
Potential second and third
iterations, but at least the
conversation gets started.
Yeah.
How do you, I'm sure you're,
you're familiar probably with
birth plans.
When, when women are pregnant,
they, they tell us, our coaches,
they tell us to come up with
a birth plan and you're supposed
to write down, you know, if you
want an epidural or, or if
you're supposed to write down what
happens in the, in the terrible
case, what happens if
my baby dies, what happens if I go
into a cardiac arrest, you know?
And, um, and it's funny because
the naive mothers like me will
show up to the hospital
and hand the birth plan to the
doctors and the nurses.
And the reaction you get from the
medical staff is sort of laughing
at you.
Like, what, what do you, what is
this supposed to do?
We know what to do.
We're the medical staff.
We know exactly what to do if this
happens.
And it, it, you don't realize
until after the fact, or maybe
more savvy women than I do
realize, oh, the plan wasn't for
the medical staff.
It was for my own anxiety.
It was for my own.
The plan for your partner to, to
have that mutual landing pad, if
you will.
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah.
So how do you talk to a parent
about their responsibility to the
people who'll be left
behind without turning the
conversation into sort of
pressure, blame, or a fight?
Tell me what you mean here.
Do you mean the response, like the
financial responsibility?
Well, no, I think the
responsibility of engaging in the
conversation, um, when you're
hitting that
wall and they've dug their heels
in, um, it creates the next level
tension and stress within
the family and those who are left
behind.
So we don't want that conversation
to be imposing of even more
pressure and more blame on the ill
parent and we don't want it to
turn into a fight, but there is
possibly a responsibility
to the generation that's going to
be left behind after a parent's
death.
How do you navigate that
conversation?
Uh, there are simple phrases and
sentences that help to navigate
that.
It requires some confrontation,
not the hostile kind, not the, but
definitely the tense kind.
The caregiver, the caregiver, the
loved one, the adult child has to
confront the parent and
say a couple of sentences.
Hey, we're a family and you owe us
this.
That's the first one.
The second one is your death is
not all about you.
It's going to affect all of us
profoundly.
That's usually enough for sort of
a, you're, you're not going to get
the, you know, the cartoon.
Oh, gee, you're right.
Thanks for that.
You're going to get more of a
begrudging.
All right, fine.
What do you want to know?
What, what?
Ask me your questions.
But at least you've started the
conversation, right?
I think it's, it is a hundred
percent okay for family members to
confront one another when
there is obligation.
And this would apply not just to
death and dying.
This would apply to pulling your
weight in the family when you're
not helping out with a
family chores.
This, this applies to getting a
job.
This applies to launching when
you're a teenager.
This applies to all kinds of
things.
When you are a member of a family,
it ain't all about you.
You owe the family.
You are an obligation to other
people.
I actually think this is a
beautiful design of humanhood.
I love this.
I love that we are living our
entire lives obligated to one
another because it insists on
humility
and community.
And it, it makes us humble and
community oriented.
And so even in this case, call
them out, call them out and say,
hey, you're being selfish.
This is not all about you.
This affects all of us.
That is just so powerful.
And that, that call out can
actually fall on deaf ears, not
just the person whose death
is foreshadowed, but other family
members.
And we see this coming up a lot
where despite, um, some element
of, you know, awareness trying
to be raised that, yes, you're
part of this, you need to
participate, you need to help.
There's always that one caregiver
who's drowning in it all.
How do you champion the cause when
you're facing the obstacle of just
no responsiveness to the call?
I think it goes back to what I,
what I said before, you probably
should strong arm it.
Then you need to make the plan
without, without the person.
Um, so there is, here, here we
come to acceptance again.
There is some acceptance that's
going to, to have to happen here.
And it's an acceptance of, this is
not going to go well.
And that sucks.
And that's, that's, that's bad
news.
That's a disappointment.
And again, it's okay.
We deal with disappointments.
We deal with difficult things.
If your caregiver is just, is just
a not, sorry, not your caregiver.
If your, your dying loved one is,
is just a non-starter.
Just, you can't get through.
Well, it's either going to be you
or the medical staff making
decisions and that's messy.
And so there's going to be
inevitable controversy and that's
a real pain.
And it's going to be part of this.
I think, I think there needs to be
an acceptance around that because
if you get to that point
and there isn't, and your, your,
your dying loved one is not
controversial about it, then
it's kind of a bonus.
Then you did the right thing by
making your own plans, uh, working
with the medical staff
or, or, or, you know, other
caregivers, um, so that, so that
at least somebody knows what's
going to happen.
Um, but that's, uh, you know, it's
funny, Mark, you're asking me,
what do you do with a difficult
family member?
The same thing we've always done
with difficult family members.
We, we sort of accept, look, this
is who they are.
They're going to make this
difficult, difficult for me,
difficult for everyone.
And this is sort of part of my
cards, part of the hand I was
dealt.
This, this is what, this is my,
this is what I got.
And so you play your hand the best
you can.
And you may actually have a pretty
good skillset at playing that
hand.
You've just never been called to
play it, but you may be pleasantly
surprised if that inner
caregiver critic is not pounding
on you.
Um, and that you can actually show
yourself some grace.
I mean, it's in this circumstance
though, for an adult child who's
caregiving to be prepared
to honestly talk about death, it
can be pretty tough to be shut
down.
Yeah.
Yeah.
How do you advise your families,
your caregivers to cope with that?
To cry, to let your feelings be
hurt, to be unbelievably gracious
and generous with yourself
at yet another disappointment.
If your loved one has shut you
down, it is very unlikely that
that's the first time that
has happened.
It is more likely that that has
happened in your relationship your
entire life.
And if it helps, you can view it
as another letdown in this
relationship and recognize that
those hurt so bad and you'll heal.
It'll, it'll take some time.
You'll heal, but, but really,
really nurture yourself in those
moments.
You didn't do anything wrong.
You're doing the right thing.
You're dealing with a difficult
person and difficult people hurt
people.
And, and, and you might, you might
get hurt in those, in those
instances.
And then go back to, I'm giving
you permission to strong arm it.
Go back to throwing your hands up
and saying, fine, I'm doing this
without your input then.
I'm coming up with a plan for my
own wellbeing, for my own mental,
mental state so that I can
show up and be as good a caregiver
as I can to you.
And for the family's wellbeing
too.
Yeah.
I think one, one thing I'd, I'd
add to that is that if you're
going to cry, you don't have to
cry alone.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Turn, turn to the other victims,
if you will.
Turn, turn to your, turn to your
support system.
I'm a therapist.
So I will say, turn to a
therapist.
We're really good at tears.
We, we welcome them.
A lot of adult children imagine
that, you know, the nearer's end,
um, a lot of adult children
imagine that near the end,
everything will finally be sort of
become clear and the parent
will open up.
the old wounds will actually
soften and the right words will be
said and the relationship
will somehow come together.
How realistic is that hope?
And can it even happen in moments
of terminal lucidity?
Unlikely.
I'm sorry.
Um, can it happen?
I'm sure.
I'm sure it can happen.
But that feels like, you know, me
telling my daughter that sure, she
could be a movie star.
I mean, is the possibility there?
I guess so.
It's so rare.
Could, but don't count on it.
Exactly.
It could, but don't count on it.
Um, we go out the way we've lived.
If we have lived in a certain
personality, if we have lived in a
certain state of mind,
if we've lived with a particular
attitude about the world and the
people in it, that's
probably how we're going to go
out.
Um, better to, it's so funny how
much I'm using the word accept in
this conversation, better
to accept the person as they are.
This is my dad.
He's kind of a blowhard.
So he's probably going to go out
as a blowhard.
This is my mom.
She's reserved and quiet and never
talks about anything difficult.
So she's probably going to go out
that way.
We, we sort of, we go out the way
we've been living, um, hoping and
praying for that fantasy
deathbed scene from a Hollywood
movie.
Um, sure, you can hope for it, but
don't go to Vegas and bet on it.
So someone can find acceptance and
forgiveness without receiving the
apology, the accountability,
the tenderness, or the
understanding they felt they've
needed to be okay with.
That's the ballgame, Mark.
That is what you're accepting.
What you're accepting is, oh, I'm
not going to get this thing I so
long for.
Oh, oh, this thing I've been
hoping for my whole life.
Ever since I was a kid, I wanted
my dad to say he was proud of me.
And I know finally this day is
going to come.
That is what you're accepting.
You're accepting, oh my God, that
day is not coming.
It's not going to come or it
didn't come.
And yes, that, that, when we say
acceptance, that is the
acceptance.
It's the bottom of the ninth and
the other innings have been
played.
Yes, yes.
So how then can an adult child
enjoy the time that's left with a
parent when the fear of loss
can so easily turn every visit,
every conversation, and every
moment of silence into a test of
whether
they're truly present?
I like preparation.
I like sitting in the car for a
minute before I go in to see my
father-in-law.
And maybe we're coming full circle
here, kind of giving my little
girl inside, giving her a hug and
saying,
I know you're scared.
I think, I think people
underestimate how even just
acknowledging that I'm afraid
reduces the fear.
Even just acknowledging, oh, there
it is.
I'm afraid.
It's sort of, it activates that,
that nervous system, right?
The, the autonomic nervous system.
It kind of goes, okay, all right.
It's sometimes I think of fear and
that, what was that cartoon movie
where the fear cartoon was the
purple guy.
And, and if you just kind of said,
I see you over there.
He says, oh, okay, all right.
I'm glad you see me.
So preparation, kind of, kind of
sitting before, before an
encounter with a loved one saying
like,
I'm, I'm going to, I'm afraid of
death.
I'm afraid of this person dying.
The other thing that I really like
is, big shocker, is talking.
Is, um, sitting with my loved one
and saying those things out loud
and letting it be okay that we
say, um, uh, I'm feeling really
afraid today.
Your, your loved one, those are,
I'm going to get emotional again.
Those can be such beautiful
connecting moments.
If I, if I'm so vulnerable to say
it out loud to my person that I'm
sitting with and say, I'm so
scared.
Sometimes they say, oh, honey,
there's nothing to be afraid of.
Sometimes they say, I am too.
Sometimes they say, um, really,
what are you afraid of?
So, and, and you have these, you
know, those moments, Mark, where
it's human to human and it's real
and it's authentic and you, you
just feel like you're in a, a, a
bubble with this person.
You can create those moments by
actually saying it out loud to the
person how you feel, you know,
about, about the circumstances.
Or walking in and saying, this is
a tricky time we're going through,
isn't it?
Say it out loud and the other
person's like, oh, God, I'm so
glad you said something.
You know, you have these, like,
all of a sudden it's just the two
of you and it's just your eyes and
it's just your hearts and it's
just your feelings and it's just
the two of you having these
moments.
My God, is there a better way to
spend those last days than those
authentic connections?
Well, that also gives the dying
parent a chance to parent one more
time in one more moment.
Oh my gosh, I didn't even think of
that.
Yeah, it's, it's beautiful.
And what, what a gift, what a gift
to the dying parent to be able to
say, oh, sweetheart, they're
there.
One last time.
All right, I got to get a Kleenex
and we're going to take a break.
And we've made it a point to
invite our illustrious production
team to, to share questions.
And I'm going to call on Fred and
Graham to join.
All right, Angela, let's talk
about my mother.
You invited me to talk about my
mother last time.
We didn't talk about her.
We talked about some other things,
but I think it's time to revisit
that.
So I'm in a position now where I'm
trying to get my mother to talk
about her wishes, what's going to
happen with her estate.
Just, and I'm approaching it
really from a position of it's, we
need you to protect my brother and
I.
Um, and even in that language, I'm
reverting back to a much younger
version of myself.
So I show up as the 51 year old
Fred and I'm the one that says,
brings these important, um, you
know, issues and tries to broach
the subject and get her to talk
about it.
But as soon as the questions or
the statements are out of my
mouth, it's no longer the 51 year
old version of me that's listening
for the response.
It's the latchkey kid from, cause
I'm done X.
It's the latchkey kid.
It's the person who experienced
disappointments, all sort of
looking through the lens of, of
like all of the challenges from my
childhood.
And I'm just kind of thinking to
myself, can you just get this one
thing fucking right before the
end?
Can you just figure this one thing
out?
And if you can figure this out,
like, just, let's just wipe this
slate clean.
I have no other issues.
Can you just be there for me in
this one moment when it's really
important before it's too late?
And the timeline is, is attached
to that too.
So the clock's ticking, right?
So there's a bunch of things
happening.
Um, but I think one of the things
that's really confusing for people
is that they start the
conversation as one version of
themselves and the listener or the
person who responds or reacts to,
what's said or what isn't done or
what's being done is the child.
And that is extremely, um,
difficult because you're just,
you're asking a question from one
place, you're responding from
another place.
And then you have to sort of piece
that together in real time as
you're trying to negotiate
whatever, whatever's going on.
Could you speak to that a little
bit more and just maybe help me
understand how I can not be
petitioning from, from, from my,
my like 12 year old self, but, but
staying in my adult self so I can
better deal with what's whatever
happens.
Yes.
Yes.
Before I answer, are we billing
your insurance or are you going to
pay me out of pocket?
I'll pay you out of pocket.
Actually, Mark's going to pay.
So that's one of the perks.
I got your back.
Okay.
So I want to ask you before I
answer, let me get a little bit
more information.
How, how, how were you, what were
you feeling when I was talking
about that, um, that old fear of,
of abandonment of my parent dying,
being repressed and that kind of,
that repressed our whole lives.
And then kind of reawakening is
that, is, did you, did you
resonate with that?
Is that happening for you when
you're talking with your mom?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
That was, that was, that's a lot
of the themes from this
conversation have actually been
resonating pretty strongly, um,
but definitely like, you know,
trying to keep that down.
And I feel her trying to do it
too.
She doesn't want to like, you
know, she's 77 and she's like,
this isn't time for this
conversation.
I'm still so young.
And I'm like, but it's time for
some kind of conversation, mom,
because you are 77 years old.
Um, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, um, so, so when you are,
you're, you're kind of meeting
this resistance with your mom,
you're, you're bringing up, um, a
timely issue.
You're really trying to talk
about, you're trying to be
practical.
You're trying to be the adult
logical self.
Um, you're getting some resistance
from your mom and she's saying,
ah, maybe later, maybe later,
maybe later, whatever she's
saying.
Um, are you, do you, in those
moments, um, I think every, by the
way, I think all of us can relate
to those moments because what
happens inside of us is the child
wakes up with a fierce intensity
and stomps and shouts and give me
my cookie now, right?
And we throw these internal temper
tantrums in the moment.
So, Fred, what if that's okay?
What if, in those moments, if you
throw the adult version of this
kind of childlike temper tantrum
and maybe you're a little
embarrassed of yourself and maybe
you're shaming yourself for not
being able to hold it together as
an adult and maybe you're kicking
yourself for just reverting right
back to this childhood dynamic.
But what if that is the only way
this conversation is going to
happen?
You remember what I said about
grief is not orderly and it's not,
it's messy.
And you're giving us such a
beautiful example of messy, of,
of, of, uh, disorganized and, um,
and, and sort of dirty grief and,
and planning for loss, right?
And timelines that are all over
the place, because as I'm
listening to the conversation with
her and my child self comes
forward and feels, you know, all
of this hurt and, and like,
they're not being cared for.
Like my 51 year old self is
looking at my mom going, how can
you not care for this young kid?
Like, how can you not care for
this child?
Right.
It's not even about like, how can
you not care for the present
version of who I am?
But it's inside I'm thinking like,
how can you let your, your, your,
this young child down like this?
Like, what are you doing?
Like, I don't understand.
So there's all of these different,
it's, it's, it's really, the
timelines get mixed up all in the
same conversation in real time.
Yes.
Yes.
And that's the messiness, right?
Your ability to, um, to grant your
mother grace in those moments will
be your life preserver.
So your ability to forgive your
mother, instead of thinking, how
could you do this to me?
Thinking to yourself, uh, you're
terrified.
You're scared to death.
Fred, it's weird, but in those
moments, and they don't happen a
lot until the latter stages,
you're the parent.
So that little boy inside of you,
go ahead, throw the temper
tantrum.
And by the way, let it be messy.
Don't shoot for this elegant,
articulate conversation.
Let it be messy.
Let him out even.
Let him scream at her if you need
to.
But, but return to this notion
that in that moment, you're the
parent.
You're the parent who is saying to
your mother, they're there.
That's so important because like,
who is she in this moment?
Who is she showing up as?
I see the outside frame and I see
the 77 year old, but in those
moments, if she's terrified of
dying or she doesn't want to face
her mortality, she could be 12.
She could be six.
She could be, you know, I'm just,
I'm not giving her the same grace
as I've come to this understanding
about myself and where I am, but I
haven't allowed that for her.
And I think that's, I think we all
make that mistake at first.
And when we kind of, when it dawns
on us, like, oh my God, nobody
wants to face, raise your hand if
you're looking forward to death.
You know, there's no one, no one
wants to face this.
And here I am saying, hey mom,
face this.
Well, of course she's reverting to
her childhood self.
Here's my chance to say they're
there.
Here's my chance to say, I got
you, mom.
I see you.
I see you're flipping out over
there.
That's amazing.
Thank you.
Yeah, you got it.
So what, should I send the, Mark
should send the invoice?
Sorry.
I'll bill you guys.
That was an amazing conversation.
And I think a lot to be learned.
And we learn so much from moment
centered and individual centered
experiences like that.
And there's not one that's exactly
the same.
And if you take three or four
blueprints, well, they can guide
the construction of a project.
If you superimpose all of them,
all the lines are blurred and it,
you know, everyone brings
a different blueprint to the
conversation.
So it's not as easy as just
merging blueprints, but it's
looking at blueprints on either
side
and sort of coming up with a final
draft, which probably needs to be
tweaked.
And I think that conversation
between Fred and his mom and your
description of what can
be done is really so elegant in
terms of tweak those blueprints as
you're trying to merge
them because you may not get a
sound building if you just
superimpose them and try and hack
it out.
That's a great metaphor.
Great metaphor for sure.
So, Angela, many adult children
carry this private fear of the
moment the call comes and you
hear your parents died.
You need to come now.
What happens when the moment they
feared, imagined, and rehearsed in
their mind finally becomes
real?
Time stops.
There's a weird, like a special
effect in a movie where you can't
feel your hands and
and the walls get blurry and time
stops and you hear yourself
talking, you hear yourself
asking questions, but you're not
registering any information
because your worst fear as a child
has occurred.
And so your system is behaving
precisely the way it is programmed
to behave.
It is in what I think emergency
workers call it shock, right?
It is in the initial nervous
system response of fight-flight
because we perceive that
irrationally
as the ultimate danger.
And so in that moment, everything
is blurry.
You can't hear very well.
You can't see very well.
You start watching your body move
in automatic gestures.
You start doing things.
You hear your voice, like I said,
automatic.
You're probably behaving quite
beautifully.
You're probably saying polite
things to the person who's making
the call, but you're not
really present in that
conversation.
And then you hang up and you stand
there and you panic.
The panic sets in and you panic
and you mistakenly think you need
to do something right away.
You need to call someone.
You need to handle something.
You need to get your hands busy.
You panic and you need to do
something right away.
And some of us do.
Some of us panic and then we do
something right away.
And all of a sudden, you're
organizing your socks.
Or all of a sudden, you're calling
everyone in creation, right?
And you're doing something.
That doing something can be
interpreted as the fight response.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
I'm not doing, I'm fighting
against this, fighting against
this, fighting against this.
That panic lasts different time
periods for different people.
It's pretty short for most of us
who are expecting the call.
That panic period is pretty short.
Next comes logistics.
And that is a crucible of tension
and confusion and frustration.
And you get through that and then
you start grieving.
Or in many cases, you return to
the grieving that you began in the
dying process.
I mean, what you're describing is
that lack of belief that
the moment actually arrived.
But I really like that thought
about time standing still.
Do you think it's actually like
that strange collision between
shock and recognition?
Oh, I haven't thought about it
that way.
I think...
Yes.
Yes, I do.
Because it feels like a crash.
It feels like two incompatible
ideas.
I can see where then you're just
in that sort of suspended ether as
those two ideas are colliding.
Yeah, and it feels celestial.
It feels massive.
It feels big.
It feels like a cataclysm in
space.
Yeah.
So, how does grief change when the
adult child actually gets to be
present for a parent's final days
or final moments compared to with
losing them suddenly or finding
out after the fact?
Oh, you know, I get that question
a lot.
That's a really good question.
And honestly, I don't think that
I'm going to be so arrogant as to
answer.
And let me explain what I mean.
I don't think any of us have an
answer for that because we have
this fallacious idea that
we can prepare for death.
And so we do.
And when we say, I'm not talking
about like, you know, logistic
plans and financial planning
in a state, I'm not talking about
that, that we can plan for.
But planning for how we're going
to feel or being able to prepare
emotionally for death
is a fallacy.
And so when you think about that,
it feels differently if the death
is gradual and expected
than it feels if it's unexpected
and in my field, what we call
discontinuous.
There is, I can see the reasoning
for that.
And I'm going to go off for just a
minute.
When you think about how we're
raised and the stories that we're
told and the movies that
we watch and the books that we
read, all of the stories sort of
sell us a false idea that
human life goes like this.
You're born and then you're a kid
and then you go to school and then
you graduate and then
you get a job and then you get
older and then you die, right?
And all the movies and all the
stories and all the fairy tales,
they sort of tell the story
like that when actually in a ton
of cases around the world, that's
not how death works.
Death can happen at any time for
children and adolescents and
adults.
And so I think in our minds, we
have this idea, the difference
between what we call a continuous
change, meaning a change that's
expected, that is continuous in
the timeline.
I was, like you, most of us, they
peddle the idea to us that our
parents are going to die
before us and then we're going to
die and then our kids are going to
die after us.
And we're not, that's not a
guarantee, that's not real, but
because we're sort of, I guess,
programmed to think like that, we
also then believe that if we
expect our parents to die,
it will be easier, the emotion
will be easier.
I've never seen that to be the
case.
I don't know if there's research
around that, but I will tell you
anecdotally, I have never
seen a difference.
I've never observed a difference,
nor have I felt a difference
between losing someone when
it's expected and losing someone
when it's unexpected.
I think rather than try to brace
for emotion or plan to feel
something, I think it's better
to get our surfboards out and ride
and let the emotion, let the
emotion happen.
I don't know if it's easier for us
if someone dies when we expected
them to.
And I think it goes back to that
repressed, that denial, that
repressed fear that none of
us ever, ever want to lose a
parent, even if the relationship
is contentious, none of us
want to lose a parent, whether
it's expected or unexpected.
I don't know if that answers your
question.
I'm feeling myself shy about
answering that.
Well, I will have one day had the
experience of both versions and,
you know, maybe it'll
appear in the chapter of a book I
eventually write.
I don't know.
Yeah, you'll let me know if you
experience a difference.
We'll definitely be in touch about
that one.
For the adult child who was not
there and did not get to say
goodbye or the kind of goodbye
that they wanted, how do they
avoid punishing themselves for the
circumstances?
This goes back to that circle of
control.
It might even help to do the
physical exercise.
It might even help to draw the
circle on a piece of paper and put
inside of the circle the
things you can control.
Outside of the circle, the things
you cannot control.
The act of writing it down,
putting, realizing that the timing
of my parents' death is 100% out
of my control, can alleviate some
of that guilt, can maybe help to
forgive the self.
It's okay.
It's okay that you weren't there,
that this is not something you can
control.
All of us have to deal with
beating ourselves up over the
things that we never got to say
or the forgiveness we never
granted or never got.
You know, all of us are going to
do some level of kind of guilting
ourselves over that, and
that's okay.
Let's not punish ourselves on top
of everything else with the timing
of a parent's death that
we had zero control over.
What about for those listeners who
may find themselves estranged from
loved ones who are
going to have to cope with that
and or are coping with the death
of a parent after estrangement?
Is the process any different?
Yes.
Yes.
How do we successfully navigate
that intact?
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's, you're opening a topic
that's very difficult.
Parental estrangement, child
estrangement is excruciatingly
painful.
People who are estranged might not
say that.
They might not say that they
experience pain.
I would argue that they've adapted
to the pain.
It's actually excruciatingly
painful.
Someone who loses an estranged
parent probably should sit in some
therapy because what's,
the work in front of you is very
difficult to do on your own.
The work in front of you is you
have to write a narrative that's a
very difficult narrative
to write, and it has to be
cohesive, and it has to have a
beginning, middle, and an end,
and it has to be written in your
favor and in the parent's favor.
It has to be written in a way that
is full of grace and forgiveness
of human error and
human flaw, and trying to do that
on your own in the face of a
grieving process might
be too difficult, actually, and
that's when I want to say we
therapists would like to step
in and help out with that.
We would like to help people
construct an understanding of
their parent and their parent's
passing in
in a way that is not harmful to
the rest of their lives.
So don't feel you need to do it
alone.
No, that is a Herculean task.
Yeah.
After a parent dies, some
caregivers feel grief, of course,
but they may also actually feel
relief, relief that the parent is
no longer suffering, relief that
the waiting is over,
and relief that they're no longer
living under the fear of the call.
Yeah.
Why can't that relief feel just so
hard to admit?
We think that we're doing
something wrong.
If we feel better, any flavor of
better, we think that we're doing
something wrong,
please hear me loudly and clearly
saying that that's actually a gift
of death.
There aren't a lot of gifts in
death, so take the ones that are
there and the release of
that burden, it's a gift, and you
are allowed to not only receive
the gift, but indulge in
the gift.
There is nothing wrong with your
body feeling relief.
It's not that you are happy that
your loved one is dead.
Well, unless you're happy that
your loved one is dead.
That's not what's going on right
there.
What's going on right there is
that you have had a 20-ton weight
on your shoulders and it
has been lifted, and so, of
course, your body is going to feel
fresh and young again.
Of course, you're going to feel
some relief.
Indulge in that relief, knowing
what it's really about.
It's about the lifting of the
burden, not the passing of the
person.
And it's also not a judgment about
how much you may or may not have
loved, because I imagine
some really struggle with the
difficulty of allowing relief to
exist without treating
it as evidence that they love
their parent less than they
thought.
There's a Judeo-Christian idea
that I really love and I adopt in
my own life, and it's the
concept that love is binary.
That you love, period.
There's no degrees of love.
There's no, I love a lot, or I
love a little, or I love more, or
I love less.
You love.
You love, period.
That's it.
It's that simple.
Do you love your mother?
Yes.
Even in a difficult relationship,
there's no loving less or loving
more.
There certainly are moments where
you feel more connected to a
person, or you feel less and
more distanced from a person.
That has nothing to do with love.
Love is binary.
I love my parent.
My parent loves me.
Check it off the list.
Now attend to all the other
emotions, all the complications in
your mind about the things
that went unsaid and the
unfinished business.
The relief of the burden now that
that's over.
Those are all separate.
Love, let it be a pure, beautiful
thing, almost in a vacuum.
I love, and my parent loved, and
that's the end of that part of the
story.
I can check that off.
In that vacuum, you don't even
presumably need to really dissect
how conditional or unconditional
it was, which I know is on a lot
of people's minds these days.
It is.
It is.
Maybe on another time, we can have
a conversation about how
liberating it is to think that
love,
no matter what form it comes in,
you can't measure it.
There's no ruler or yardstick for
it.
Like you said, there's no
judgment.
There's no Fahrenheit degree
scale.
It just is.
It is or it is not.
Angela, when a parent dies, the
relationship doesn't simply
disappear, right?
I mean, it changes form.
And how does an adult child begin
living with a parent who's no
longer physically here,
but still present in memory,
identity, grief, and love?
Well, we sort of do it whether we
want to or not, don't we?
We still have to get the kids to
school.
We still have to eat lunch.
We still have to go grocery
shopping.
We sort of do it.
I have a friend who's also a
therapist, and she says that you
just take the grief with you.
You put it, and you take the
relationship with you.
You put it in the front seat in
the car, and you have it in the
bathroom with you when you're
brushing your teeth,
and you don't really do anything.
I hope you keep that relationship
alive through memory and recall.
If there's a grave site to visit,
I hope you visit.
I hope you talk to your loved one.
I am, and this might be corny, but
I am of the belief that they can
hear us.
We can't hear them.
You dream about them.
You talk often about them.
You let yourself cry a lot in the
beginning when you talk about them
and realize that over time you'll
be able to talk about them without
crying.
I don't know.
I guess it's sort of a simplified
answer.
You just do.
You just do.
You just have a relationship with
them after they pass.
We hear people refer to the year
of firsts.
Yeah.
The first birthday, the first
Christmas.
Yeah.
But I imagine there can also be a
way of renaming those
and to a new celebration of the
memories that come with those
special occasions.
And there's probably a way of
incorporating that into the
experience of the year of firsts,
where it could be a first new way
of celebrating who that person
was.
Can someone find meaning in the
caregiving, the waiting, the
conversations, the unfinished
pieces, and the final goodbye,
so that the experience is not
simply remembered as loss?
Well, that's an interesting
question.
I want to push back on your
question a little bit.
So I'm noticing my first instinct
is to say,
well, what's wrong with thinking
about it as loss?
It is loss.
That's okay.
It's part of the human condition.
It's part of our life cycle.
We can think of it as loss.
But if you're saying, okay, but I
don't want to.
I want it to be more than that.
Okay.
Well, it certainly can be more
than that.
You remember we were, I think you
and I were almost crying together.
Remember I was talking about those
authentic moments of connection
when you say what's real and
what's true,
when you visit your loved one.
Well, those get encoded in memory
too.
And so when you think of the loss
of your mom or the loss of your
dad,
if you slow down in that moment,
if you're driving or falling
asleep or parenting or, you know,
having a moment in your workday,
if you slow down and focus on
that, focus on that moment of
loss,
and then let it sort of, in my
mind, I'm thinking of those
graphics that sort of grow on your
screen.
Let it fill out with, oh, yeah,
but we had that moment.
And I'll never forget that
conversation we had.
And kind of let the memory of loss
expand like a, I guess like a
flower sort of,
expand into incorporating all the
memories around that loss.
That that can be, dare I say,
pleasant, almost.
Yeah.
Yeah, first of all, don't be
afraid of the memory being about
loss.
There's, that's what it is.
It's okay.
And it's, people write poems and
rock songs about that.
It's a beautiful part of the human
condition.
And then let it grow into all the
other things that were around that
loss and that process.
I remember riding in the passenger
seat after my dad had passed with
the kids in the back
and my partner driving.
And we were a big music family.
And we took our kids to see Bon
Jovi when they were five.
They were the coolest kids at
Montessori.
Wow.
But I remember going to make a
memory coming out.
And this was fresh after my dad
had passed and just losing it.
But the sense of catharsis is not
to be underestimated.
And it actually creates space for
those enriched, rejuvenated
memories in the face of loss.
I'd like to thank you for all of
the strength and strategy you've
offered our listeners today in
coping and in thinking about this.
So Angela, I wanted to thank you.
And in this moment, I might just
thank John also.
Oh, that's, that's beautiful.
Thanks for joining us today.
This wraps up the Caregiver's
Podcast for another week.
And see you back next time.
Thanks for having me, Mark.
I think one of the clearest
reminders from this conversation
today is that preparing for a
parent's death is not only about
the final moment.
It's also about the watching, the
worrying, the conversations, we're
all afraid to start, and the
things we still hope we might
receive before it's too late.
And the ending may not give us
everything we wanted.
The goodbye may not happen the way
we hoped.
The apology may not come.
The final conversation may not
resolve what was unresolved for
years.
And still, there may be love,
meaning, tenderness, and moments
of connection inside the time that
remains.
We may feel grief, relief, regret,
love, some anger, and gratitude
all at once.
But the relationship does not
simply disappear when a parent
dies.
It changes form.
For anyone listening who's afraid
of losing a parent, I hope this
conversation helps you feel less
alone.
I hope it gives you courage to say
what can be said, grace for what
never may be resolved, and
permission to keep living after
the loss comes.
Before you go, please subscribe or
follow the Caregiver's Podcast
wherever you're listening or
watching.
And if the show's been helpful,
please consider buying the team a
coffee.
The link's in the show notes.
Thank you for listening, and we'll
see you next time.
Before we wrap up, I wanted to
remind you of something important.
The conversations you hear on this
podcast are here to inform, to
support, to spark reflection.
We're not a substitute for
professional medical advice, care,
therapy, or crisis services.
Listening to this podcast does not
create a doctor-patient or
caregiver-client relationship
between us.
If you're facing a medical
concern, health challenge, a
mental health challenge, or a
caregiving situation that needs
guidance,
I encourage you to reach out to a
qualified professional who knows
your story.
If you're ever in crisis, please
don't wait.
Call your local emergency number
or recognize crisis hotline right
away.
You deserve real-time help and
support.
The views you hear on this show,
whether from me or my guests, are
our own.
They don't necessarily reflect any
organizations we work with, are
part of, or have worked with, or
been part of in the past.
This podcast is an independent
production and it's not tied to
any hospital, university, or
healthcare system.
Thank you for being here, for
listening, and most of all, for
taking the time to care for
yourself while you continue to
care for others.
I look forward to hearing from
you.