Hi,
Welcome to the first weekly letter from The Hospice Guide. It arrives Thursday mornings. It's for anyone caring for someone near the end of life, and anyone learning to live after they're gone. It takes about three minutes to read and never asks anything of you.
This week: the feeling almost everyone has and almost no one says out loud.
Relief.
When we posted about it, the replies poured in. A wife who cared for her husband for 26 years after his stroke. A woman who lost both parents and her husband in 15 months, after caring for all three. A man six years into caring for his wife with early-onset Alzheimer's, who wrote that some days he wishes it were over for both of them, "and yes I cry for feeling this."
Over and over, the same story: I felt relieved, and then I felt terrible for feeling relieved.
Here's what's true:
Relief isn't the opposite of love. Often it's what love feels like after watching someone suffer.
It can come before the end. Wishing it were over while they're still here is part of grieving someone you're losing slowly. It doesn't mean you've given up.
Not everyone feels it. One reader wrote, "Instead of relief, I felt release." Another felt only gratitude that his suffering was over. There's no right way to feel this.
One small thing this week
Say it to one person: a friend, the hospice social worker, or us, by hitting reply. Feelings we keep secret tend to turn into guilt. Said out loud, they usually turn back into grief, which is easier to carry.
If your person has passed away
You may be living in a quieter house now, with more hours than you know what to do with. Feeling relief and missing them terribly at the same time isn't a contradiction. It's what happens when you loved someone through something hard.
A line to keep
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Relief does not diminish our grief, and reclaiming our lives does not diminish the love we had for her.
A READER WHO CARED FOR HIS MOTHER
Sitting With You ยท The Hospice Guide
A question for you
Hit reply and tell us: who are you caring for, or who are you missing? A name and a sentence is plenty. A real person reads every reply.
We're gathering stories from readers about the people they cared for and lost, for a book and for this letter. Hearing from someone who's been there can be a real comfort to someone who's in it right now.
If you'd like to share yours, it takes about ten minutes. You choose whether we use your first name or keep it anonymous, and we'll never use your full name.
With you,
The Hospice Guide
When you're ready: Chapter 9 of The Hospice Guide is about taking care of yourself while you care for someone else, and the book ends with a Caregiver Comfort Corner.
Struggling to keep going? Call or text 988, any time. Your hospice also offers grief support to family for about 13 months after a death; you can call and ask for it, even later.
Educational information, not medical advice.