Tag: Grief and Grieving

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How To Talk To Your Kids About Death And Grief

Loss is a natural, but complex part of life.

By Caroline Bologna

Death and grief are natural parts of the human experience, but mourning a loss is also an incredibly complex process.

When a young child loses a loved one, parents often grapple with the challenge of explaining the concept of death and helping their little one through the grieving process (all while grieving themselves).

To help inform these difficult conversations, HuffPost spoke to a number of child mental health experts. Of course, a family’s cultural and religious background may steer the discussion, but there are certain guiding principles that are helpful for everyone to keep in mind.

Here are some expert suggestions for parents and caregivers when they prepare to talk about death and grief with children.

Be Honest And Straightforward

“Tell them the ‘facts’ about the death,” clinical psychologist John Mayer told HuffPost. “Don’t sugarcoat what death is or use ‘baby talk’ with a child. Do not use phrases like, ‘Grammy is sleeping.’ This is an opportune time to teach them about death. Don’t shy away from it.”

Board certified licensed professional counselor Tammy Lewis Wilborn echoed this sentiment, noting that using “cutesy language” and euphemisms in an attempt to protect kids from the realities of death and loss can actually do more harm than good.

“Children tend to think concretely, not abstractly, so when you use language that’s euphemistic, it can actually be more confusing or frustrating,” she explained. When people say things like “Dad is in the clouds” or “Your dad is taking a really long nap,” a young child may not understand the permanence of the fact that their father died and might even look for him in the clouds or expect him to wake up at some point.

Words like “death,” “died” or “dying” may sound harsh, but this is still developmentally appropriate language, Wilborn noted, and it’s important for children to have the language to understand the permanence of death.

Ask And Answer Questions

The kind of conversation a parent has with a child following the death of a loved one depends on the child’s relationship with the person who died. It should also vary based on the child’s developmental age and their understanding of what happens when someone dies. To that end, it’s useful to ask kids questions or offer to answer any questions they might have.

“Starting with questions can be a way in,” said Wilborn. “And you don’t necessarily need to give the specific details of how the person died, particularly if we’re dealing with traumatic grief. They don’t need all of the information, but they need enough age-appropriate details to understand that a person has died and isn’t coming back.”

Sometimes children may have witnessed something related to the loved one’s death, like being present at the scene of an accident or visiting the person in the hospital. In these cases, they need help understanding what they saw, said Chandra Ghosh Ippen, an expert in early childhood trauma and the associate director of the Child Trauma Research Program at the University of California, San Francisco.

Parents should try to shrink themselves down to the size of their child and walk through what they’ve experienced. Seeing someone in a hospital with tubes coming out of them or watching paramedics perform lifesaving procedures may be frightening for a small child, so it’s necessary for adults to appreciate how scary things might look to them.

“Create space for them to share how it might’ve affected them, and try to help them understand that doctors and paramedics were trying to help their loved one,” Ghosh Ippen explained.

It’s an ongoing conversation. “Young children will often come back to you after your very excellent explanation of death and still ask, ‘Am I going to see so-and-so?’” Ghosh Ippen said. “It’s not that they didn’t understand you, but little kids tend to repeat their questions. It’s sort of their way of mulling it over and making meaning. This can be painful for caregivers, but appreciate that the child did hear you and is just having a difficult time wrapping their head around the concept of death.”

Know That Their Emotions Are Complicated

“Grief is a complex process, so it comes with a range of thoughts, emotions and behaviors,” Wilborn explained. While parents may expect their child to feel sad, angry, confused or even guilty about a loss, there are other behavioral changes that can be harder to understand, like changes in sleeping and eating patterns or school performance issues.

Sometimes parents may feel confused about a perceived lack of sadness in their kids. “Young children have a short sadness span,” said Ghosh Ippen. “A child can suffer a devastating loss and feel really sad, and then they can go play. You may be thinking, ‘Were they really affected by what happened?’”

While adults tend to immobilize and sink into sadness, kids often discharge it by running around or trying to do something else. “They kind of go in and out of sadness, and that can put us at odds with them if we’re thinking, ‘Oh, my God, do they not care?’” she continued. “But recognize that they did care.”

Be Patient

Wilborn noted that grief is a long process, so parents should reject the tendency to want to rush past it and wonder when their kids are going to be over it.

“Grief is a process that you cannot go around. You have to go through it. So you need to be OK with the pace of the process,” she said. “It can take some time for a child to return to his or her normal.”

Mayer emphasized the power of this experience and of talking to kids about death as a way to build major developmental coping skills. “This is a positive and helps them cope with loss in their life in the future and even transitions in their life, such as leaving one school to another, advancing to high school or college, and losing relationships.”

Encourage Expression

“Children need to see that their parents are a resource; home is a resource where grief is welcome,” Wilborn said, noting that parents should encourage age-appropriate expressions of grief.

“For example with a school-aged, play is their language, so you want to lean into ways that children play to promote communication ― things like drawing pictures, playing games, dolls, puppet shows at home,” she added. “With older kids, you might encourage them to journal, draw, write songs, create poems.”

Mayer noted that being a resource for your child creates a sense of safety and security that will serve them in later life events. “They know they can depend on you, and it is wonderful modeling for them.”

Create Rituals

Creating rituals around remembering and honoring a loved one who died is another significant form of expression. “Explain that this person may not be here with us, but we can still remember him or her and celebrate their life as a family,” said Wilborn.

“When the death is really traumatic, sometimes caregivers stop talking about the person who died,” Ghosh Ippen explained. “And what’s hard in those cases is that children lose their ‘angel memories’ ― times when they really felt loved and cared for with that person. It’s normal for grown-ups in mourning to find it hard to talk about the person who died, but it’s important to memorialize them.”

The death of a loved one offers an opportunity to talk to your child about your cultural and religious beliefs.

Many cultures and religions promote rituals around saying goodbye and making meaning of death. Mayer noted that losing a loved one presents an opportunity for parents who have religious belief systems to explain these tenets to their children.

“Religious or not, it is also very helpful to teach your children that all the experiences and memories you have had with this loved one do not get erased with their death. People always live in our hearts and our minds forever, and no one or nothing can take that away,” he explained. “Say something like, ‘Where’s Aunt Susie right now? She’s not in this room with us right now, correct? That doesn’t mean she doesn’t exist.’ Aunt Susie is here (point to your head) and here (point to your heart). We have to keep our memories and good times with Aunt Susie alive.”

Make Sure They Know It’s Not Their Fault

“Sometimes children have this really uncanny way of assigning blame to themselves for things that have nothing to do with them,” said Wilborn.

With that in mind, caregivers need to help kids understand that the death is in no way their fault, and it’s not their responsibility to put on a strong face or hide their feelings.

Use Books And Other Resources

There are many great resources for parents navigating this difficult topic with their children. Ghosh Ippen and Wilborn both recommend Sesame Street’s online grief toolkit, which provides talking points, videos, activities, storybooks and more. Ghosh Ippen and Wilborn also pointed to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network as another great source of online resources.

Ghosh Ippen maintains Pinterest boards with book recommendations, including one on loss, grief and traumatic bereavement. Some of her favorite children’s books that tackle these topics include Chester Raccoon and the Acorn Full of Memories, The Dragonfly Door, When Dinosaurs Die: A Guide to Understanding Death, Rosie Remembers Mommy: Forever in Her Heart, Sad Isn’t Bad: A Good-Grief Guidebook for Kids Dealing With Loss and Samantha Jane’s Missing Smile: A Story About Coping With the Loss of a Parent.

As far as books for parents, Mayer recommended the writings of psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, as well as How Do We Tell the Children? Fourth Edition: A Step-by-Step Guide for Helping Children and Teens Cope When Someone Dies and Understanding and Supporting Bereaved Children: A Practical Guide for Professionals.

There are many children’s books that cover the experience of loss.

Beyond books and online resources, Wilborn emphasized the value of community resources, such as school counseling, support groups, play therapy and peer counseling.

Let Them See You Grieve

The way a child’s parents or caregivers respond to a loss is instrumental in helping them cope. “They need to see you grieve,” said Wilborn. “But they also need to see you taking care of yourself and engaging in self-care, which may or may not include professional help. If you don’t, they may feel like they have to take care of you because you’re not managing grief in a way that’s healthy.”

It’s OK to cry in front of your children and show the value of expressing emotions and having shared emotions among family members. It’s OK to say things like “I’m feeling really sad because my dad died” or “Daddy is sad because he misses his mom.”

“Within our culture, we often have a sense that we have to be tough, so many parents are trying to help their kids by putting on a brave or overly cheery face,” said Ghosh Ippen. “But that can seem really odd and confusing. The child is feeling sad because it’s devastating that this person is gone, but then the parent is cheery ― which can feel eerie and weird.”

Ultimately, it’s about conveying the idea that “Mom is sad, and Mom is also strong,” she continued. If the feelings of grief become overwhelming, parents should seek help from other sources because it’s not their child’s role to help them.

“It’s important for little kids to believe that grown-ups are bigger, wiser and stronger,” said Ghosh Ippen. “We are not going to fall apart, and if we are going to fall apart, other grown-ups are going to help us.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Why do grieving men find love faster than widows?

Three years after his wife, Rebecca, died of cancer, former footballer Rio Ferdinand is to marry his girlfriend, Kate Wright.

By JAN MOIR

Till death do us part – but what comes after that final, bleak separation? For lucky Rio Ferdinand, it has meant a new bride and a second chance at happiness.

Three years after his wife, Rebecca, died of cancer, the former footballer is to marry his girlfriend, Kate Wright. He proposed to her in front of his children on a rooftop during a holiday in Abu Dhabi. Everyone is apparently thrilled.

“You can’t even remember what it’s like to feel happy. And then, bam, out of the blue, you meet someone and everything changes,” loved-up Rio told his biographer, the journalist Decca Aitkenhead.

In a recent interview with The Sunday Times, he also encouraged her to follow in his footsteps and find love after suffering her own bereavement.

“You need to get out there and meet someone too. Trust me – you’ll see what I mean,” he said.

In 2014, Aitkenhead’s partner, Tony Wilkinson, drowned in Jamaica while trying to rescue their four-year-old son (who survived), leaving her a single mother of two young boys.

When she began contemplating her future without him, she initially worried she’d be romantically taken advantage of as a widow. Now, she wryly concludes that what wise friends told her nearly five years ago has turned out to be true.

While widowers seem to become ten times more alluring to the opposite sex practically overnight, men are not attracted to widows in the same way. Look at Decca: attractive, intelligent, successful – and still single. Love after death certainly seems much easier to achieve for men.

A year after his wife, Gemma, died of cancer, and vowing that she would never be replaced, Sky Sports presenter Simon Thomas has just announced that he is in a relationship with a new girlfriend.

“From the early stages, she had this empathy towards me. She’s been an incredible support for me,” he said, which tends to suggest their relationship has at least partly revolved around him and his grief.

Not all men would be so empathetic if the circumstances were reversed. Some might say 12 months is far too early for a fresh romance, but Thomas has a young son and found the loneliness of widower-hood “brutal”.

Perhaps one reason why men find new love more successfully than women is that they are less likely to have close friends they can talk to, or a social and emotional support network to help them through bereavement. Or perhaps they are just more selfish.

A recent study found two-thirds of widowers were in a new relationship within 25 months, in contrast to less than a fifth of widows. Over the age of 65, the discrepancy is even larger, with ten times as many widowers as widows remarrying.

But don’t worry, ladies, it’s not all doom and gloom. Becoming widowed is associated with a 48 percent increase in risk of mortality.

So, if you are really miserable, you can cheer yourself up with the thought you’re going to die soon anyway. Excuse my jest! For what else is there to do but cackle with dark humour when contemplating this sea of wifely despair?

But why is there such divergence between the sexes in love after death? The fragile male ego, Decca Aitkenhead is warned, cannot reconcile itself to the indignity of a relationship with a woman still in love with someone else.

Most men don’t want to be the second choice or to feel inferior, whereas women find it easier to show a kind of deference to their predecessor, as they know it’s expected of them.

They also know that men are hopeless by themselves, so they make themselves indispensable. They mould and adapt emotionally in ways men find more difficult.

And we cannot overlook the romantic allure of a widower with young children and the torrent of feelings, both maternal and carnal, that can arouse in a woman.

According to the old saying, women mourn, men replace – and hopefully with a younger model, if the devils can possibly get away with it. Instead of forever dwelling on the past, many men aspire to repeat the happiness they knew as husbands, sometimes aided by women who see bereavement as opportunity, not tragedy.

After his wife’s death, Rio Ferdinand talked often about risking a new relationship and revealed that, in the past, he had judged the bereaved harshly.

If a widower began dating within five years of losing his wife, it was Rio’s belief “he never really loved her”. Now he says that if a husband started dating the day after the funeral, he wouldn’t be appalled any more. He would understand. Who is anyone to judge?

Most men and women would want their surviving spouses to be happy above all – to love and be loved in the years to come.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Exercise can help you work through grief

”The death of a mother is the first sorrow wept without her”
— unknown.

By Kathy Hansen

On Oct. 21, my world was rocked with the somewhat sudden loss of my mother. Although she lived an amazing 85 years, I was not prepared for the depth of the loss I felt that day and am still feeling as I write this column. I had heard through the years that the death of your mother is a loss like no other, and boy is that spot on. I have never felt so sad, angry and lost all at the same time ever in my life.

With the passing of time, the help of some wonderful friends and my church family, I know that eventually I will be OK. At the present however, sleep is hard to come by and my healthy diet has gone out the window with all the well-meaning folks bringing by comfort foods. The one thing I have been able to maintain, however, is my exercise routine.

Any significant loss in your life can trigger a powerful grieving process. A death in your family, the loss of a pet, divorce, or even being laid off may send you whirling down a roller-coaster ride of emotions. Numbness, anger, denial, despair, isolation, and depression all are par for the course when you’re grieving. What makes it even more frustrating is that it is not always an orderly process. I find myself being sad one moment, angry or “salty” as I like to call it the next, to feeling OK for a while. It is really frustrating and draining.

When you’re in the throes of such intense emotion, your instinct may be to isolate yourself alone in your bedroom, or it may be to surround yourself with people for distraction. There is no right or wrong process, only what works for you, but there is one activity that seems to offer benefit universally for virtually every grieving person who tries it, and that is exercise.

Here are a few of the ways that exercise can help you get through your grief:

— Improves your sense of control: Grieving and loss take all of your sense of control away. Intense exercise where you have to focus to perform the activity gives you control back.

— Increased circulation to the brain: Exercise of any kind increases blood flow to the brain. When you are in the throes of grief, it is hard to think straight. Exercise can remove the brain fog and help you focus on more positive thoughts.

— Improved sleep: People who exercise are able to fall asleep faster and stay asleep. Inability to sleep is a huge side effect of grief. By making sure you are keeping up your fitness routine, you can get the rest you need to deal with your emotions.

— Relieves depression: Exercise is one the best ways to alleviate depression. When you exercise, your body releases endorphins, serotonin and dopamine, all natural and body-made mood elevators. This can alleviate the need for the use of pharmaceuticals to manage your grief.

— Relieves anxiety: The loss of a loved one can trigger tons of anxiety. Working through funeral arrangements, wills, etc., can be a huge stressor. Exercise can trigger the body to release what are called GABA neurotransmitters in the brain that can induce a feeling of calm.

While exercise will not take the pain and sadness of your loss away, it can help you get through it. Grieving is a process that has to be worked through to the end. I am trying my best to look at it like a CrossFit WOD. I know the workout is going to be long, grueling and sometimes painful but, in the end, it will make me a stronger person.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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How the First World War changed public mourning in Britain

Remembrance Sunday was yesterday, the 11th of November. The two-minute silence, held at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, provided a moment for the country to remember the sacrifices so many people made and to say thank you.

This year, marking 100 years since the end of the First World War, The Royal British Legion and Poppyscotland have launched a campaign to say ‘Thank You’ to all who served, sacrificed and changed our world through the conflict.

WWI impact on bereavement and mourning

The National Service of Remembrance will centre on the Cenotaph in Whitehall. Built to provide a focus for public mourning, the Cenotaph and an estimated 100,000 war memorials in the UK today provide a powerful reminder of how the First World War had a profound impact on British attitudes to bereavement and mourning.

The huge number of soldiers killed in the war – around three quarters of a million British servicemen – caused an overwhelming sense of grief throughout British society. Historian Adrian Gregory estimates that almost everyone in the country experienced the loss of friends or neighbours, with three million British people losing a close relative.

Whole battalions of volunteers from the same town were killed. In July 1916, after the first day of the battle of the Somme, the local paper in Barnsley reported: “There is hardly a home that has not experienced some great loss or suffered some poignant sorrow.”

In a society that had once mourned openly, private mourning became a coping mechanism. “Soldiers and bereaved families largely repressed their emotions and coped in silence,” writes Patricia Jalland in 1914-1918 online.

Public mourning

It has been suggested that the public commemoration of the war dead took the place of traditional family mourning, and possibly marks the start of our society’s struggle to talk openly about death and dying.

With weaker religious influence and medical advances causing a gradual shift away from the Victorians’ attitudes to death and dying, the First World War hastened the change. The way of grieving has since changed and this has led to private mourning and public acts of commemoration we are more familiar with today.  

The fact that many of dead were buried where they had fallen and most families denied the comfort of a funeral cemented the change. Without a body to bury and no grave to visit, traditional mourning rituals were not possible and people found new ways to mourn their dead.

Some followed the funeral cortèges of soldiers unknown to them. The notion that one dead soldier could symbolise all those who had died was enshrined in The Tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey.

Reverend David Railton, an army chaplain who had seen a battlefield grave marked by a rough cross and the words ‘An Unknown British Soldier’, wrote to the Dean of Westminster after the war. He suggested that an unidentified British soldier be buried in the abbey to represent the hundreds of thousands who died during the First World War.

On the 11th of November 1920, the second anniversary of the Armistice that ended the First World War, in a grave containing soil from France and covered by a slab of black Belgian marble, the body of the Unknown Warrior was buried at the west end of the Nave of Westminster Abbey.

Saying Thank You

In this centenary year, The Royal British Legion has launched a mass movement to say ‘Thank You’ to all who served, sacrificed, and changed our world during the First World War. The charity is calling on mass involvement from the public to mark 100 years since the end of the conflict.

Thank You will honour not only the 1.1 million British and Commonwealth Armed Forces who lost their lives in the First World War, but also those who played their part on the home front, and those who returned to build a better life for the benefit of generations to come.

Many events have been organised in the run-up to 11th November and there are lots of ways you can say Thank You. Whether your personal Thank You is an event dedicated to those who made a difference in your community, a visit to a place of significance, or a simple tweet, there’s no limit to the ways people can take part. For ideas and more information visit the Thank You page on The Royal British Legion website or follow the hashtag #ThankYou100.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Elizabeth Gilbert on Love, Loss, and How to Move Through Grief as Grief Moves Through You

“Grief is a force of energy that cannot be controlled or predicted. It comes and goes on its own schedule. Grief does not obey your plans, or your wishes. Grief will do whatever it wants to you, whenever it wants to. In that regard, Grief has a lot in common with Love.”

By Maria Popova

“All your sorrows have been wasted on you if you have not yet learned how to be wretched,” Seneca told his mother in his extraordinary letter on resilience in the face of loss. One need not be a dry materialist to bow before the recognition that no heart goes through life unplundered by loss — all love presupposes it, be it in death or in heartbreak. Whether what is lost are feelings or atoms, grief comes, unforgiving and unpredictable in its myriad manifestations. Joan Didion observed this disorienting fact in her classic memoir of loss: “Grief, when it comes, is nothing like we expect it to be.” And when it does come, it unweaves the very fabric of our being. When love is lost, we lose the part of ourselves that did the loving — a part that, depending on the magnitude of the love, can come to approximate the whole of who we are. We lose what artist Anne Truitt so poetically termed “the lovely entire confidence that comes only from innumerable mutual confidences entrusted and examined… woven by four hands, now trembling, now intent, over and under into a pattern that can surprise both [partners].”

But we also gain something — out of the burning embers of the loss arises an ashen humility, true to its shared Latin root with the word humus. We are made “of the earth” — we bow down low, we become crust, and each breath seems to draw from the magmatic center of the planet that is our being. It is only when we give ourselves over to it completely that we can begin to take ourselves back, to rise, to live again.

How to move through this barely survivable experience is what author and altogether glorious human being Elizabeth Gilbert examines with uncommon insight and tenderness of heart in her conversation with TED curator Chris Anderson on the inaugural episode of the TED Interviews podcast.

Gilbert reflects on the death of her partner, Rayya Elias — her longtime best friend, whose sudden terminal cancer diagnosis unlatched a trapdoor, as Gilbert put it, into the realization that Rayya was the love of her life:

Grief… happens upon you, it’s bigger than you. There is a humility that you have to step into, where you surrender to being moved through the landscape of grief by grief itself. And it has its own timeframe, it has its own itinerary with you, it has its own power over you, and it will come when it comes. And when it comes, it’s a bow-down. It’s a carve-out. And it comes when it wants to, and it carves you out — it comes in the middle of the night, comes in the middle of the day, comes in the middle of a meeting, comes in the middle of a meal. It arrives — it’s this tremendously forceful arrival and it cannot be resisted without you suffering more… The posture that you take is you hit your knees in absolute humility and you let it rock you until it is done with you. And it will be done with you, eventually. And when it is done, it will leave. But to stiffen, to resist, and to fight it is to hurt yourself.

With an eye to the intimate biological connection between the body and the mind (which is, of course, the seedbed of feeling), Gilbert adds:

There’s this tremendous psychological and spiritual challenge to relax in the awesome power of it until it has gone through you. Grief is a full-body experience. It takes over your entire body — it’s not a disease of the mind. It’s something that impacts you at the physical level… I feel that it has a tremendous relationship to love: First of all, as they say, it’s the price you pay for love. But, secondly, in the moments of my life when I have fallen in love, I have just as little power over it as I do in grief. There are certain things that happen to you as a human being that you cannot control or command, that will come to you at really inconvenient times, and where you have to bow in the human humility to the fact that there’s something running through you that’s bigger than you.

Illustration from Cry, Heart, But Never Break, a Danish meditation on love and loss

Gilbert goes on to read a short, stunning reflection on love and loss she had originally published on Instagram:

People keep asking me how I’m doing, and I’m not always sure how to answer that. It depends on the day. It depends on the minute. Right this moment, I’m OK. Yesterday, not so good. Tomorrow, we’ll see.

Here is what I have learned about Grief, though.

I have learned that Grief is a force of energy that cannot be controlled or predicted. It comes and goes on its own schedule. Grief does not obey your plans, or your wishes. Grief will do whatever it wants to you, whenever it wants to. In that regard, Grief has a lot in common with Love.

The only way that I can “handle” Grief, then, is the same way that I “handle” Love — by not “handling” it. By bowing down before its power, in complete humility.

When Grief comes to visit me, it’s like being visited by a tsunami. I am given just enough warning to say, “Oh my god, this is happening RIGHT NOW,” and then I drop to the floor on my knees and let it rock me. How do you survive the tsunami of Grief? By being willing to experience it, without resistance.

The conversation of Grief, then, is one of prayer-and-response.

Grief says to me: “You will never love anyone the way you loved Rayya.” And I reply: “I am willing for that to be true.” Grief says: “She’s gone, and she’s never coming back.” I reply: “I am willing for that to be true.” Grief says: “You will never hear that laugh again.” I say: “I am willing.” Grief says, “You will never smell her skin again.” I get down on the floor on my fucking knees, and — and through my sheets of tears — I say, “I AM WILLING.” This is the job of the living — to be willing to bow down before EVERYTHING that is bigger than you. And nearly everything in this world is bigger than you.

I don’t know where Rayya is now. It’s not mine to know. I only know that I will love her forever. And that I am willing.

Onward.

Gilbert adds in the interview:

It’s an honor to be in grief. It’s an honor to feel that much, to have loved that much.

Rayya Elias and Elizabeth Gilbert

Complement with life-earned wisdom on how to live with loss from other great artists, writers, and scientists — including Alan Turing, Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, Rachel Carson, Charles Darwin, Johannes Brahms, and Charles Dickens — and the Stoic cure for heartbreak from Epictetus, then revisit Gilbert on creative bravery and the art of living in a state of uninterrupted marvel.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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A Handbook for Grieving

Go funeral dress shopping. When the saleswoman asks about the event, say: “Dressier than office, but not as fun as cocktail.”

By Caroline M. Grant

Before: Text your friends to tell them that your mother has entered hospice. Tell them that it’s just to get the equipment she needs (a hospital bed, a better wheelchair) and not a sign of her impending death. Pretend you believe it.

Brace yourself for the SWAT team of hospice services and providers that descends on you: the social worker, the nurse, the chaplain, the volunteer bearing a soft blanket, a stuffed bear and lavender-scented hand lotion. Give the bear away.

Answer every phone call from “Unknown Number” because usually it is some kindly person from hospice. Apologize to the Unknown Number who is not hospice when you tell her no, you can’t subscribe to the symphony because your mother is dying. Start to tell her that your mother used to subscribe to the symphony and you would like to someday, when she is … Trail off, hang up and feel guilty about the little bomb you dropped into her day.

A month before your mother’s death, read the draft of her obituary that your father has written, and start to offer edits like it’s any other piece of writing. Don’t cry until you come to the names of your children and nieces.

Nine days before her death, lean in close to your mom, sitting in her wheelchair at the dining table, and ask her to repeat herself until you hear her say, “I’m hurting.” Take her back to bed immediately and tell her you’re sorry, so sorry, you never want her to be in pain.

Cut up the back of all your mother’s nightgowns so that the caregivers can take them on and off easily. Cut off all the buttons to make the gowns more comfortable.

Talk and text with your siblings to help them figure out if and when they should fly out. Tell them not to feel guilty if they can’t; mean it. Feel relieved when they all book flights.

Sit at your mother’s bedside, holding her hand and begging her to please hang on, when your sister’s flight is delayed for six hours. Keep readjusting the sleeping arrangements in your house so that two guest rooms work for five extra family members. Put air mattresses on the floor of your bedroom for your kids and secretly wish it were a permanent arrangement.

Go funeral dress shopping with a friend. Meet her after work downtown and go to the mall like it’s a normal evening. Feel momentarily stumped when the young saleswoman asks brightly, “Shopping for an event?” Resist the urge to answer darkly; instead, try, “Dressier than office, but not as fun as cocktail.” Stare back at the saleswoman and feel some sympathy when she blinks.

Buy an entirely inappropriate, form-fitting, off-the-shoulder dress (which will hang in your closet, unworn, until you finally take it to a consignment store). Accept your tissue-wrapped purchase from the saleswoman who says, “Have fun at your event!”

Escape with your friend to a restaurant and down a glass of wine, very fast.

Seven days before her death, stand at your mother’s bedside while a priest gives her the Last Rites. Two days later try to control yourself, at church, when the same priest says that he is “bad at the Last Rites” because the recipients don’t actually die. Do not catch your sister’s eye, and definitely do not look at the woman the priest points to as proof; she is not your mother.

After church, race back to your mother’s bedside where your brothers have been keeping vigil. Lean in close and smile when she gestures toward your outfit and whispers, “I like this.”

Tell her you chose it with her in mind. Be so glad that “I’m hurting” won’t be the last thing she says to you.

Take turns with your father, sister and brothers, sitting with your mother and holding her hand. Notice when her tight grip, which you have had to peel off finger by finger, loosens, but don’t comment on it. Pass her hand gently to each family member in turn, like the baton in a terrible relay race.

Read to her and play music. Try not to flinch when the nurse nods approvingly and says, “Hearing is the last thing to go … well, nearly the last thing.” Wonder at how quickly you have become accustomed to your mother, your bright and opinionated mother, lying unconscious, mouth open and breathing heavily. Listen to her breathing and try to memorize the sound of it.

Three days before your mother’s death, start to sleep with the phone by your bedside. Be grateful on the two mornings you wake up without it having rung.
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After: Hang up the phone and lean into your husband’s arms. Tell him, “Now I have to learn how to live in this world.”

Wake your siblings. Drive through the darkness to your father’s apartment. Continue to call it your parents’ apartment.

Write “RINGS” on a piece of paper and set it on the floor by your mother’s bed so that you don’t forget to ask the undertaker to remove two of her rings. Ask him to please leave her wedding band on.

Go funeral dress shopping with your sister. Buy the only dress you try on. Notice ruefully that you actually kind of like it. Too bad; you will never be able to wear it again.

Dig out the darkest sunglasses you own and wear them even on gray and rainy days.

Drink so much water. Grief is dehydrating.

Be thankful for friends who make very specific offers: to do your laundry; to pick up family members at the airport; to deliver breakfast; to buy you waterproof mascara.

Look around during the funeral and realize how many of your friends have also buried their mothers. Wonder if you were supportive enough to them, realize you couldn’t possibly have been, know that you will be from now on.

Pause, during the final verse of the final hymn, and listen with tears and joy while your sister and niece float the descant high above all the other voices.

Add your voice and hope that the music somehow reaches your mother.

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