23rd March is the annual National Day of Reflection, led by Marie Curie. Started following lockdown, and now in its third year. The Day of Reflection is a way to collectively and individually reflect and remember those we have lost.
There are events around the country we can join. Or we may choose our own way to pause and reflect.
Caring and loss
If we're caring for someone, how we experience and process a death will be different to someone who isn't caring.
If we've lost the person we care for, then this can create a huge hole in our day to day life - especially if we've been their full-time carer. We've not only lost someone we spend a lot of (if not all) our time with, but we may also feel like we've lost our purpose. How good or bad our relationship with them was, will also play a huge part in what come nexts as we process our emotions.
If we've lost someone else, but still need to provide care, it may be challenging to find the physical and emotional space we need to grieve and heal.
If we've lost someone recently, it may be helpful to read some carers thoughts on how to cope and get support at this difficult time.
If things are very challenging right now, please remember that how we feel now, will not be how we feel forever, and that urgent support is available.
Urgent support with grief
If we need emergency support, there are lots of options available with qualified people we can speak to, for free, at any time of the day. These links may also be useful:
How carers are handling grief and loss
We often see carers in our community, share their loved one's final moments, followed by an outpouring of support from other carers. Sharing our experiences and talking about loss, can be very healing and is one thing that we can all connect with. Sharing in the community, talking (with friends or a counsellor), and journalling are just some of the ways we can reflect and heal.
Below are some stories and reflections from carers who have lost someone. We hope they bring a sense of familiarity and comfort. It can be comforting to know we're not alone.
Perhaps reading this, will be our own moment to pause and reflect on the last year or few years. Taking a few moments to remember the good times, sit with the tough times and process where we are now. There are some tools and ideas that might help us, including journalling and talking therapy. Or it might be as simple as sharing with other carers in our community.
If we're caring for someone, and we know that we may lose them in the near future, it may be helpful to have some support with tricky death conversations and to understand about anticipatory grief.
Reflections from the Mobilise Community of Carers
Many carers in the Mobilise community have lost someone they love. Almost everyone will have been touched by the death of someone. Grieving is never an easy journey and those of us who lost someone during the coronavirus pandemic, may still be processing the loss of not being able to grieve together or say our proper farewells at the time.
Carers in the community have shared their thoughts about grieving the past couple of years. They each have an individual story to tell, perhaps they resonate with your own experiences, perhaps we will learn from them and together with our own individual stories (that might be quite different) we can remember those we have lost.
Caring for Mum whilst grieving for Dad
The week after my Dad died unexpectedly in 2018, my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimers.
A few months before lockdown, I gave up work to try and spend some time with her whilst it was still possible. In the first lockdown, I moved in to protect her from isolation, falling, disorientation. Carers lose something of their own lives all the time. With Alzheimers, I've lost my sibling relationships as well as my mother bit by bit as well as - temporarily - my own home, routines, choices, time.
Being alongside a gradual and unpredictable ending whilst grieving for another parent is like being forged in a fire I didn't know existed. I wish for more balance in what is held up as normal in our culture, on TV and what we focus on.
We're afraid of sadness and vulnerability and I'm deeply glad of National Reflection Day. We should do it annually. To grieve our individual and collective losses, acknowledge our blessings, celebrate our growth as human beings, and reflect on what really matters.
I lost the love of my life
What I found helpful when experiencing the death of a loved one: counselling, talking.
My counselling hasn't gone as well as I expected due to her availability, a busy year for the resource, however knowing she was there gave me peace. Allowing myself to be upset and cry was also useful. Teaching myself to stop saying sorry every time I cried. I lost the love of my life, married just under 40 years.
What can friends and family do to support someone? Be there and keep in touch. I had my friends contact me in the very early days but they then disappeared after the funeral, that is the actual time you need support.
I was on a mission just after my husband died as I had to ensure tasks needed to be done. Arrange a funeral, write words to be read out. Deal with the official paperwork, banks, tell us once service. After the funeral I had no contact with my friends, my neighbours were there.
Although one neighbour said, "you still crying?" I could have hit her.
It's not like in the movies where people bring you food or at least it wasn't for me, that would have been so welcome
How has being a carer had an impact on all of this? There was a huge impact on caring. I had looked after my husband's needs for a very long time. After a massive stroke in 2002 and then the journey of myeloma cancer. When he was gone I thought "what now?"
He left a big hole in my daily routine. No looking after his every need, no post from the hospital, no appointment, nothing on the calendar, no arranging my day. This was a big shock to me.
What can we do to remember those we have lost? I will never forget my hubby. I have started writing a journal about our life. I wanted my family to know about how we met, the things we have gone through. Happy times and sad times.
I would also say my husband didn't die of Covid like so many who have lost their lives the last couple of years. My husband died of cancer, myeloma. The thing that 2020 did rob us of was our freedom, I'm sure we would have created memories in 2020, rather than being stuck in the house 24/7.
Caring until the end
Being with my Dad from the last day he could speak through to the moment he took his final breath was such a privilege.
Care staff were so gentle and kind to him and so welcoming of my sister and I as we sat. As we prepare for his funeral, there has been great comfort in receiving personal cards, letters and flowers and reading lovely comments in the Mobilise community. I feel very grateful.
Saying goodbye to Mum
What I found helpful when experiencing the death of a loved one: I think preparing for it.
Saying what you need say to your loved one. Giving them the time to say what they have to say. I experienced the joy of both my mum and I being able to say we loved each other. It’s given me peace and strength.
I spoke about the potential of my mother’s death to my local priest months before she died. I found out what I needed to do practically as I’m now in the process of repatriating her back to Ireland and I know what I have to do.
Recognise that death is often not sudden. For some there are signs of the journey beginning months before it happens. Prepare emotionally and practically both for you and for your loved one.
When making arrangements, what helped me is practical support. Also stories about your loved one. Informing my friends and relatives of the stories about my mum gave me comfort.
Impact of being a carer: I’m now in a kind of limbo or trance. In shock. The last 3 months have been intense. And suddenly I have my own time, I’m in the middle of arranging everything. I’m more exhausted than grieving it feels. Once she has her final service, I know that’s when I will fall apart. I need to be strong now. Service in UK, service in Ireland and all the Covid issues and paperwork.
Remembering those we have lost: Talk about them to friends and family, say a prayer, light a candle. I’ve just written a eulogy for my mum’s service this week. It was cathartic. Write down stories about your loved one, how you feel, what other people said. I’ve had to pick music and find photos for the service. This all helped express my memories of my mother. Build a book of memories.
Grieving from a distance
My uncle had been living in Australia for many years and died in the autumn. We were able to watch a live stream of his funeral service and his sister (my aunt) gave a eulogy live from the UK. His dog even made an appearance!
A book of remembrance has been opened online and we've been able to share our thoughts and memories as well as read what others have said about him. Colleagues from all over the world paid tribute and we got to know a little more about his adventures in his adopted home.
There will hopefully be a time when we can come together as a family to remember him and celebrate his life. The plan is for a day out at a wildlife park (he was a big animal lover) and a picnic lunch.
Feeling the collective losses and grief
I am lucky so far to say we had no loss as a family to Covid. Of course though, over the years I have experienced death of loved ones.
I can only write for this as someone who is caring, as a natural empath and somebody who is very very sensitive to what happens to others, and feels “earth energy”, and pain for others who are strangers.
Feeling the losses and the collective grief has been a journey for me. I have developed practises to honour thinking about those who died. For example, lighting candles - a kind of ritual of thought for those who have passed, scrapbooking poems about death and life, being part of a mindfulness group where we discussed our feelings around this. I also developed an altar of special objects that bring comfort.
Every day I now do a mindfulness practice called “Kindness to Others” and part of this is sending kindness out.
These practises have all really developed in the light of the many many deaths and have really helped me channel feelings of grief. My heart goes out to those who have lost loved ones this last year, in whichever way.
Further resources and support we might find helpful
Find out more about the Marie Curie National Day of Reflection and resources to help with grief.
As carer's feelings of grief don't just come with the death of a loved one. Saying goodbye to the person they were before illness, or the life that we had together or hoped for might also involve feelings of grief.
One carer recommended a book "The Cancer Whisperer" by Sophie Sabbage. It includes a chapter on grief, "This is an invitation to completely redefine your relationship with grief and embrace it as a profoundly healing force in your life."