{"id":636,"date":"2016-04-06T16:42:01","date_gmt":"2016-04-06T16:42:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/?p=636"},"modified":"2026-02-02T15:02:30","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T15:02:30","slug":"ambiguous-loss-dealing-moving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/2016\/04\/06\/ambiguous-loss-dealing-moving\/","title":{"rendered":"Ambiguous loss: Dealing with it and moving on"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"We've

We’ve all got baggage–some big and some small. As caregivers, how\u00a0do we deal with it\u00a0and move on?<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

I always say my husband is the most baggage-free person I\u2019ve ever known. Aside from some OCD about organization (to be expected from a former accountant), he\u2019s pretty much hang-up free. He doesn\u2019t drudge up old problems. He doesn\u2019t parent mean or fight dirty. He doesn\u2019t seem to have the festering emotional sores so many of us have buried within.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that he\u2019s had a perfect life (he hasn\u2019t), but I think it\u2019s because he\u2019s one of the most upfront people I\u2019ve ever known. He deals with problems head on\u2014tough conversations, loss, grief, sickness … Unlike so many of us who bury issues to avoid short-term discomfort, he gets stuff out there and moves on.<\/p>\n

In the business of senior care, we see firsthand how unfinished business can affect you both now and later. We see the beginning stages when an adult child can\u2019t bring herself to visit her mom after a stroke, and we see the end result when she\u2019s overcome with grief and guilt after Mom dies.<\/p>\n

Often, the biggest cause of our unfinished business is something called \u201cambiguous loss.\u201d Ambiguous losses are those that don\u2019t always involve a death but might be just as painful because there\u2019s no closure. They\u2019re the losses most of us experience at some point in life and especially as we become caregivers for our sick or aging loved ones\u2014the loss of Dad to Alzheimer\u2019s (he hasn\u2019t died but the person we know is gone), a son who battles drug addiction (our dreams for him are on hold), infertility, divorce, giving up a child for adoption. These losses feel like deaths because something is forever changed or gone, but there\u2019s no funeral to attend, nobody sends flowers, and we don\u2019t receive cards of sympathy.<\/p>\n

Losses without closure are the losses that eat away at us\u2014the unresolved baggage that fills therapist offices, ruins relationships, and makes us act like jerks sometimes. The emotions of ambiguous loss help explain behavior that seems inexplicable\u2014that sibling who hasn\u2019t gone to visit your father more than once since he\u2019s been in rehab, the adult child who stops by quickly just to run errands.<\/p>\n

Ambiguous loss is complicated because unlike regular grief that has a defined process we\u2019re all familiar with (shock, denial, anger, etc.), this kind of grief isn\u2019t usually identified. The emotions are new and painful. And instead of being encouraged to take time to deal with them, we\u2019re usually told things like, \u201cEverything happens for a reason,\u201d \u201cAt least he\u2019s still alive,\u201d or \u201cMaybe it\u2019s a blessing in disguise.\u201d<\/p>\n

So many times I\u2019m surprised that in my first conversation with a senior, she\u2019ll tell me about something from long ago that still eats away at her\u2014the child she lost in pregnancy 70 years before, the marriage that wasn\u2019t what she expected, the mother she resented caring for late in life\u2014the losses she didn\u2019t really deal with when she was going through them.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re going through this as a caregiver for someone you love\u2014mourning your dreams for the future or the life you expected to have\u2014take time to feel and deal with the emotions you\u2019re having. Go away for a week and focus on yourself and what you\u2019re dealing with, see a therapist, talk to friends. Do what you need to do so today\u2019s losses don\u2019t come back to haunt you tomorrow. You\u2019ll not only have a happier, healthier life later on, but I promise you\u2019ll be a better caregiver now.<\/p>\n

Molly Rowe owns FirstLight Home Care with her husband, Steve Rowe, and lives in Swampscott with their two sons. FirstLight provides non-medical in-home care to adults all over the North Shore. For more information and help caring for your loved ones in the comfort of their own homes, please visit FirstLight\u2019s website at <\/em>www.salem.firstlighthomecare.com<\/em><\/a> or contact Molly at <\/em>781-691-5755\/mrowe@firstlighthomecare.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I always say my husband is the most baggage-free person I\u2019ve ever known. Aside from some OCD about organization (to be expected from a former accountant), he\u2019s pretty much hang-up free. He doesn\u2019t drudge up old problems. He doesn\u2019t parent mean or fight dirty. He doesn\u2019t seem to have the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,15],"tags":[22,3,5,20,6,8],"class_list":["post-636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-caring-for-aging-parents","category-loss","tag-aging","tag-aging-parent","tag-home-care","tag-hospice","tag-senior-care","tag-seniors"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}