Anticipatory Grief:
Coping with a Loved One's Terminal Illness
From the moment you first hear the doctors say that they've done all they can to cure someone close, you may feel in shock. How can that be true?
Surely there is something else that will help?
For Sarah, her dad still looked good. A little more frail perhaps, but still tall and pink in his cheeks. They were looking forward to lunch at their favorite place after finishing at the doctor's office.
Dan was still able to do so much for himself. He was moving to Sunnycrest in April after the house was sold, but why did they need to hire extra help?
Sarah felt a cold chill in her back as she realized that her dad was going to die and much sooner than she had ever imagined. Sarah was feeling anticipatory grief.
Knowledge and understanding of how anticipatory grief works can be useful to the care team as they deal with the patient, the family, and their own interactions with patients and families.
Like everyday grief when we lose something of value whether something big like a job or something small like a favorite pair of earrings, people get used to loss. While a three year old may throw a fit if his ice cream falls out of the cone and onto the road, a college student would have a different reaction. We would hope.
Loss is painful. But its frequency in life becomes expected. But death, and the dying process when a loved one is ill, is a major loss.
In a society that fears death and avoids talk about illness, dying, and matters related approaching the death of a loved one is for most people a enormous challenge. So part of what we can do is to help people talk and share as they are ready.
