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Last year, a dear friend of mine lost her husband of 36 years to colon cancer. She\u2019d been his caregiver for half their marriage, yet they had a relationship to envy. No discussion was taboo between them. Honesty was valued and expected. He was her advocate, her cheerleader, her defender, and she was his. They\u00a0could make each other laugh, even during the darkest times. Don\u2019t get me wrong. It wasn’t the stuff of Hallmark movies, but as she would tell me now and then, \u201cHe\u2019s so damn hard to stay mad at.\u201d<\/p>\n
When he died early\u00a0one morning, asleep in the bed that hospice had brought him, she called me a few hours later in tears, \u201cHe\u2019s gone, and I feel relief.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her words made perfect sense to me \u2013 an honest\u00a0reflection of the duality of life when caring for someone we love.\u00a0Seeing them hurting, declining physically, and, in some cases, mentally, is often the hardest part. But, when their pain is gone, our sorrow is tempered slightly, because we know they\u2019ve been released and are finally safe.<\/p>\n
Even with\u00a0that said, there have been too many times when I’ve heard caregivers apologize for\u00a0speaking this feeling\u00a0aloud – maybe for fear of being judged by the listener, or by themselves. Then, it becomes one more burden for someone already dealing with a heavy heart.<\/p>\n
So here’s the takeaway, dear friends. Relief is a natural\u00a0 reaction to grief, stress and worry. It doesn\u2019t mean you loved the person any less. It doesn\u2019t mean you wouldn\u2019t do anything for them if they were still alive. It doesn\u2019t mean that you won\u2019t continue to experience a deep sense of loss. It means you\u2019re human.<\/p>\n
Feel\u00a0what you feel without guilt, shame, or second-guessing \u2013 because this is how the healing begins.<\/p>\n
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Last year, a dear friend of mine lost her husband of 36 years to colon cancer. She\u2019d been his caregiver for half their marriage, yet they had a relationship to envy. No discussion was taboo between them. Honesty was valued and expected. He was her advocate, her cheerleader, her defender, and she was his. They\u00a0could […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":956,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[30,26],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.judithdhenry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.judithdhenry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.judithdhenry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithdhenry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithdhenry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=944"}],"version-history":[{"count":41,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithdhenry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1037,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithdhenry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944\/revisions\/1037"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithdhenry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.judithdhenry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithdhenry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithdhenry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}