Inside Aging Parent Care

After a death, caregivers wonder what's next?

When I was in my early forties a close friend was killed in a skiing accident over spring break.  Barbara’s death was the first I had experienced since the death of my father-in-law more than 20 years before.  Her loss devastated me and also taught me a few things about how grief takes us.

Roland Barthes described my first reaction when he wrote in the journal he kept after the death of his mother that “As soon as someone dies, (there is a) frenzied construction of the future (shifting furniture, etc.): futuromania.”  I remember being especially struck by this “futuromania” when Barbara died.   I found myself rushing around compulsively busy with whatever tasks had fallen to me upon her death—making calls, changing appointments, making those arrangements …

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