Our parents, in their death, offer us the gift of another birth. In receiving that gift, we come to embrace life fully–with all its mystery and humanness, conflict and resolution, joys and sorrows, separations and meetings.

My father lay in a hospital room his body an immobile lump under a sheet. His eyes stared unseeing through a gray film His skin was white, his breathing shallow and irregular. I held his warm hand, tenderly stroking the fingers. He was vulnerable and open, like a child.

His attention seemed focused on an inner struggle, on breaking the last threads that tied him to his body – one he had clearly outgrown. He was struggling toward death, just as my son had struggled toward birth six years before. I breathed in rhythm with Dad’s breathing, stroking his forehead, swabbing his mouth with water, talking to him, despite the coma he was in. I felt like a midwife, supporting him through this passage. I reflected back on how my husband had played this role for me during labor – holding my hand, stroking my forehead, and talking to me as I moved through each contraction. I felt as though I were swimming in a vast ocean, struggling to meet each huge wave that swelled over and threatened to submerge me if my attention wandered. I had to flow with the rhythm of these tides. After four hours, I reached the critical transition stage of total cervical dilation. At this point, I felt I had reached my limit; I was exhausted, and the pain was excruciating. Responding to my husband’s encouragement, I reached deep down into myself for the strength and courage to go on.

And then I began pushing, pushing past my limitations, past old concepts of who I was. Both a baby and a mother were born that morning. Both of us had let go of the limited space of an old world, had struggled through a long, dark passage and finally emerged.

My father was now struggling through that long passage. He was laboring to free himself of bodily limitations and emerge into pure spirit. Already the room was filled with his presence. His body could contain him no longer, and he flowed all around me. I was filled with love.

There I was at the bedside of my dying father, reflecting on the passage of labor with my son. The two events felt closely linked, though at opposite ends of life’s continuum. Just as the birth of our children is a rite of passage, so, too, is the death of our parents. These events change us; we will never be the same.
Caring for Parents and Children
How do we work with these forces of transformation and change? How can we help our parents through their passage while caring for our children? How can we make time for our own grieving? How can we integrate these changes into family life?

I struggled with these questions from the moment I heard my mother’s message on my answering machine: “Dad has cancer all through his bones. We just heard from the doctor. Don’t call me back because Dad doesn’t want anyone to know.” I had not been prepared for the intensity of feelings that surged through me. I felt shocked and alone. I wanted more time to resolve and heal the wounds in our relationship, more time for those special father-daughter moments, more time for my son to spend with his grandfather.

My father went on with life, going to work as usual, hiding his illness from everyone. My mother turned to me for support with each new crisis, and every time the phone rang, my body tensed in anticipation of the news. The future seemed frightening, the present highly stressful. My patience was thin; loud noises disturbed me. I felt raw and cried easily. I needed time alone. My emotional state did not seem compatible with my son’s naturally rambunctious, energetic nature. In short, my parenting skills disintegrated.

The generation of adults referred to as the “sandwich generation” is simultaneously raising children and caring for aging and dying parents. Many also have full-time jobs. The pressures are immense as these adults, already emotionally overwhelmed, try to attend to the competing needs of parents and children. No matter what they do, someone seems to feel hurt, left out, or resentful. Tied down with responsibilities at home, many members of this generation experience a lack of freedom to respond to their dying parents as they would want to.

A parent’s illness or decline can place a tremendous strain on family life, demanding an exhausting expenditure of time, attention, and money. A debilitating illness may cause physical and personality changes as well. Living with uncertainty throughout this period is emotionally and physically draining. One crisis often follows another, leaving little time to recuperate. Medical, legal, and financial responsibilities create added pressures, as do repeated trips away from home if parents live in another area. Then, with the death of a parent comes the further responsibility of caring for the other parent, while both people are grieving.

During a grandparent’s illness or decline, children may become upset by a decrease in attention or a change in routine, by the heightened emotions of the adults around them, or by their own grief. They may be frightened by the turmoil surrounding the illness, or threatened by a new sense of tension in the household.

My son began acting out soon after I received the news of my father’s cancer. The more preoccupied I became, the louder he yelled and the more he tested. Still, I kept my father’s secret and did not share the news of his illness with my son. The only person I told was my husband. As time passed and the situation with my son escalated, I realized that I could no longer subject my child to my father’s rules. My struggle to cope with the stress of his illness could not continue to throw me back into the unhealthy patterns I had learned as a child. Clearly, my parents’ method of coping with their crisis was not healthy for my family. My son was sensing, as children do, that the secret was festering inside me.

So I began talking about his grandfather’s illness. Seeing no physical changes in his granddaddy, my son responded more to my sadness than to the illness. The days passed, and I told a few close friends as well. I could breathe fully again. And my son calmed down.

Although I knew the road ahead would be hard, I now felt the support of family and friends. Most of all, in acknowledging how big this event was in my life, I felt momentous inner shifts. One of the two people who had given me life was now dying. Suddenly there was no buffer between me and death. I was next. Propelled into a painful evaluation of what really mattered in life, I saw what was important to my father as his life came to a close. He had lived for his work, yet all the accomplishments, money, and medals had become insignificant to him. Only love remained. I felt a new appreciation for my loved ones, and for our precious, simple moments together.
Coping with Grief·
Be gentle and kind to yourself.

Acknowledge all that you are doing, and that you cannot do it all.

Recognize the impact of this major life passage.

Allow yourself to feel raw, vulnerable, shaky, and alone.

Do not pressure yourself to get back to normal.

Remind yourself, as well as your partner and your children, that grief is a long healing process. Tell them what you want from them.

Take time each day to retreat to a special place for regeneration and healing. Then return to your daily commitments and responsibilities.

Listen to your children’s concerns about their grandparent’s illness, about you, about death. Be attentive to their requests.

Establish weekly talks with your partner. If you do not have a partner, seek out friends who are understanding and supportive of your experience.

When you cannot be with your dying parent, be creative: use the phone, write a letter, meditate or pray, talk to your parent through your heart. In your time alone, work on healing the unresolved issues in your relationship.

Support your other parent in whatever ways you can, and acknowledge your limits. Suggest possibilities for outside emotional support as well. Clarify and designate new responsibilities among your children, and address the emotional issues, even the old ones, as they come up.

Regard this period as a window of opportunity for making healthy changes in the family system.

Join a support group or consult a therapist if you feel the need for added perspective, support, and guidance.

By Alexandra Kennedy

Author

  • Alexandra Kennedy MA MFT is a psychotherapist in private practice in Soquel, California and author of Losing a Parent (HarperCollins 1991), and The Infinite Thread: Healing Relationships Beyond Loss (Beyond Words 2001).

    She has led workshops and lectured at universities, hospices, churches and professional organizations on grieving the loss of a parent.

    She is a faculty member at UC Extension Santa Cruz and has taught a graduate course on dying and grieving at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology for 7 years.

    Her articles have appeared in Yoga Journal, Mothering Magazine, Magical Blend and the California Therapist.

    She has been interviewed in USA Today, the San Jose Mercury, the San Francisco Examiner, and the Boston Herald as well as on NPR's "Talk of the Nation", CNN's "Sonja Live" and KQED's "Family Talk." Visit her website at: alexandrakennedy.com