What is the hardest thing to do when you lose a loved one

By Sunil Saxena

The hardest part of losing a loved one is to accept that this was the best for them. Really? You take a sigh of relief that they are gone. Their suffering has ended.

The tears don’t come so readily. The grief is transient. You stop missing your loved ones within hours of their going. Even those who come to console you have the same to say. “You did your best. No one lives forever.”

You are told that the last few months or the last few years of your aged father or mother were nightmares for them as well as for you. You nod in reluctant acceptance. It was hard to see them suffer.

Still, guilt racks you. “I have such beautiful memories of my mother. As a child and later as a young mother I would always turn to her,” my friend once told me. “My mother was uncomplaining. She would always make space for me. It was hard to imagine life without her.”

So, what happened? What changed? Why did your mother or father become a burden that you did not feel the pain of their going away?

Family caregivers advance two reasons. The first is that old age and accompanying diseases reduce your loved ones to a pale shadow of what they were. They are no longer the same people you knew. It takes time for this to sink in. But once it does it changes your mindset and approach.

The second is obviously the suffering. Age robs many loved ones of their dignity. It is not easy to bathe your father or mother; you feel uneasy. It is even worse to change diapers. You sit silently as they try to get up from the bed but fail to find the strength.

You hate it when you see them fall or lose their sight or their sense of hearing. A sense of helplessness, sometimes impotent rage, overtakes you when the doctors tell you to take your father or mother home as they can’t do anything more.

When their suffering drove you to ask God to take them away

It is not that you did not pray when they were alive. You wanted their suffering to end. Sometimes, their suffering even drove you to ask God to take them away. And then you felt guilty. Will your child do the same to you? Will he or she wish you to die?

So, when do you stop caring and accept the inevitable? It is a grey line, something you dread and hope that you are never asked to cross it. But there are times when the doctor turns to you and asks you to do the unthinkable. “Your father is gone,” he tells you. “There is no point keeping him clinically alive.”

Your first reaction maybe to say no. But then you reflect. Why is God taking this test? You are being asked to take away the life of the man or woman who gave you life, who nurtured you, who stood by you in your joys and sorrows, and made you what you are today.  Should you play God and with one sign on the dotted line pull the plug?

You want to cry but the tears don’t come. This is life, you tell yourself repeatedly. This was the best for your loved one.

Read also:

• 5 ways to take good care of elderly parents
• How I saved my mother from slipping into depression
• What do you tell your parents as they start ageing and their dependency grows