When Love Endures: The Power of Connecting in the Face of Mortality
Last night, I visited my parents and I saw the effects on my mother’s body due to the suffering from cancer. I guess everyone can imagine how that has affected me.
While I was driving home, I was wondering about her will to stay alive, even though there’s clearly a lot of suffering.

My father also said that he has taken the responsibility to take care of her. She had been admitted in a nursing home for a short while, but during his visits, he saw the effects of the lacking quality of care, urging him to take that decision.
Although there were quite a few dramatic confrontations in our lives, more and more positive memories started to surface while driving. Memories about my youth and the things they were really good at.
What I really noticed yesterday was the way she was teaching basic things to my dad. Although her body started to give up, her mind remains rather sharp which is enabling her to educate my dad about housework. Even though, he is 70+ years old, he hasn’t lost his touch for learning.
On the other hand, it is also motivating him to spend all of his time with her, while accepting external assistance.
Somehow this situation is bringing them closer together and it’s wonderful to see the loving depth of their relationship. After all these years, they are still growing in the true sense of the word.

Seeing this made me think about my father-in-law, who passed away on September, 28, 2020.
He had already expressed his desire for a medically assisted passing in January 2018. He had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease since 1992 and was in the final phase of his illness. The passing of his daughter happened before we could finalise all the required paperwork.

Although his body had already reached its limits at the time, his will to live prevailed. He didn’t want to leave his beloved behind during this period.
In those last three months, he had several touch and go moments where my presence was needed. Looking back to these intimate occasions, he would really speak openly about how the future would look without him, for his spouse and me.
I didn’t understand his intention, as many amongst us would, at these times I was just dealing with the flow of events without truly realising what was happening. I came to realise that he had really wanted to make sure that everything possible had been taken care of. When I showed him all possible preparations had been made, he started to feel more at ease and started to look forward to and truly accept the moment he would leave this beautiful earth.

Linking this thinking strategy to another person in my life. I noticed that my late wife, before her departure, also had started to sort things out.
During our relationship, she did about 95% of the financial management for both families (ours and her parents’) and in her last 3 months she was relying on me for these tasks. What’s more, one day before her final decision, she had even insisted on choosing another insurance broker closer to home.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t been able to tick all the boxes and there was quite a lot to sort out after her passing, but she was able to lay down the fundamental building blocks of what was about to come.
In all honestly, this is not an easy topic to write about, but I’m grateful for being able to reflect on and truly appreciate all these details.

Also, this thinking strategy can positively influence others to look at the ones they’ve lost in the several phases of their mourning trajectory.
And this is one of the techniques I use in my approach. Generally speaking there are five steps to consider:
- How did you handle the practical approach after the loss?
- How do you experience the 5 emotional phases of mourning?
- In what way did your personality shift after the loss?
- What is required to rebuild your life?
- What are the things you could do for others?
These questions do not have a ‘correct’ answer because they depend on you.
When you really think about them and the answers might prove challenging, these questions will help you to organise your thoughts and process things more smoothly
If you are interested to know more about my approach or you want guidance, don’t hesitate to contact me.
These blogposts also refer to Mourningcounselling, just click on the link to keep on reading.
Category Mourning Councelling