“There was nothing romantic about their deaths”

Karen Green’s life was turned upside down when both of her parents became terminally ill within a very short space of time. Karen and her brothers were forced to navigate the complexities of grief, family dynamics, and the harsh realities of illness and dementia

Business psychologist and Executive Coach, Hazel Showell discovers the importance of seizing the moment, and having those big, difficult conversations while there is still time. You’ll hear how illnesses altered the relationships of everyone in Karen's family. Including how dementia comes with a double loss, of the person that you knew, and the person that they became. 

Hazel has her own guide for those who are experiencing grief, which you can access here.

As well as a worksheet on supporting people who are recently bereaved which you can access here.

Read Hazel's accompanying blog for this episode

More from Hazel…

Visit her website: Just Hazel

Or connect on: LinkedIn

Connect with Karen

[00:00:23] Hazel: Welcome to endings

[00:00:32] Hazel: In this episode, you're going to hear from Karen Green, who as well as working for the Ford Motor Company for over 20 years, is also a really dear friend. Karen lost both [00:00:45] of her parents within two weeks of each other.

[00:01:12] Hazel: Let's go back to the beginning. Karen is one of three. [00:01:15] She's got two brothers and the family are close.

[00:01:35] Karen: My mum pretty much always Bake a cake.

[00:01:47] Karen: We were on holiday in Spain, actually, at the time, mom had a first big fall, uh, where she broke her hip. And I guess [00:02:00] as folks get older, you can expect, and they do have little slips and falls and trips. I hadn't really thought very much of it.

[00:02:30] Hazel: Karen's dad didn't seem so well either. He had pains down his arms and shortness of breath. So he went for blood tests.

[00:02:45] Hazel: All of a sudden, Karen and her two brothers were faced with the task of caring for not one, but two parents.

[00:03:28] Karen: So yeah, that whole [00:03:30] machinery kind of swung into motion and I think in a way that gave us something to focus on, something quite practical around what those arrangements would look like. And then I think for my dad, that [00:03:45] choice for his treatment around a more, very intensive form of chemotherapy, which would mean he'd have to remain in hospital versus a less intensive form of chemotherapy, which [00:04:00] would have less Likelihood of um, extending his life, but it would mean he could be, uh, having that treatment as an outpatient.

[00:04:18] Hazel: If you can say a bit more about why it was so important you wanted them to be able to, to die at home.

[00:04:43] Karen: So there were [00:04:45] times, uh, when we couldn't visit either parent in hospital, or only one person would be allowed at the bedside. And those changes kept coming back and forth around what you could and couldn't do. So having. [00:05:00] them at home. I think it's just gives you that control over your environment. I think it's about comfort.

[00:05:37] Karen: And yeah, hats off to the local hospice who enabled and supported us for my dad to die at home because they, [00:05:45] um, took on the role of providing care. morphine to him so he could be comfortable, uh, in his last days at home.

[00:05:57] Karen: My dad, he [00:06:00] beat out the time he was given, so it suggested he had six to eight weeks.

[00:06:27] Karen: She came out of hospital in [00:06:30] March, uh, of 2020. And her health had never been great. And that continued to slowly decline. Uh, my dad continued. And then fast forward to July of the following year. [00:06:45] And my dad was clearly declining. He'd lost a lot of weight. The chemo wasn't really doing anything for him. I think we had the advice from the hospital that this would, this was only a matter of time towards the end of July.

[00:07:45] Karen: And then in that dilemma of not telling my mum. She's in hospital. She's not in a familiar environment. She's got dementia. Some days she could be really lucid, other days less so. So we all agree we will wait and tell her. [00:08:00] Once she'd been discharged from the hospital, and then over the subsequent week it became clear that the treatments they were trying for her were not working.

[00:08:39] Karen: So we were able, with the support of the hospital, to have her discharged quite quickly, to come home, [00:08:45] or come to my brother's home. That was the Friday, and she died on the Monday. So they died exactly two weeks apart.

[00:09:12] Karen: I think it's very different experiences [00:09:15] to lose a loved one when you've been told they've got a terminal illness, they're dying, and you're kind of preparing yourself for that. Compared to somebody dying unexpectedly, you're not [00:09:30] prepared for that at all. I think for my dad, there's that sort of acceptance, that processing, a lot of grief, shock, anger, upset, all at the outset of the [00:09:45] process.

[00:10:12] Karen: It's not trying to find those special [00:10:15] moments, those meaningful conversations, because that's exhausting. It's just doing everyday things that you would normally do. The experience with my mom was completely different. I think it's just being completely unprepared for it. All of [00:10:30] them say all of our focus, but having a lot of focus on knowing that my dad had a terminal illness and looking at what we could do for him and how we could support him and then thinking about the support structures we would have in place for my mom, [00:10:45] assuming that she would live, you know, a significant period of time beyond my dad. And then I think my mental thoughts were around, okay, once COVID is done and we can go out, you know, how my mum loves shopping, we'll [00:11:00] go out, I can take her out shopping and get used to how I could manoeuvre the wheelchair and with the car and think about how I would do all of those things and where we would go.

[00:11:34] Hazel: That's phenomenally hard. And looking back, what was unexpected that you learned about the process? So what did you find unexpected? [00:11:45]

[00:12:30] Karen: And I found people's reactions when I then came back to work a couple of days later were very much, Why are you here? You should be at home. You should be with your family. You should be I found that really quite [00:12:45] difficult.

[00:12:51] Hazel: Because that is difficult if they have a sense of, Oh, you need to stop this, you need to do this. No, you need to [00:13:00] find a way to cope. However you do it

[00:13:19] Karen: For the most part, we don't talk about it or want to think about it for ourselves or for others. And I get that. I spent my childhood being [00:13:30] really scared of dying, as I can remember as a kid at primary school getting so upset every time my dad left for work because I thought I wasn't going to see him again.

[00:14:06] Karen: And I just reflect that having to have, you know, shared at work, cause you would do to say, look, I need to step away. I'm not going to be involved in these [00:14:15] projects for a bit. I'm handing them over. This is the reason why that sort of bereavement was out there in the open. People are aware that this had happened and it triggers something in other people.

[00:14:45] Karen: I had a lot of comments about how quick, how short the distance of time that they died. In fact, it was only two weeks. People were saying they, they. They couldn't bear to be apart. [00:15:00] And it's, there's nothing to do with that. There's, there was no romanticism, nothing romantic. You know, when my dad had leukaemia, my mom had a collapsed lung and a series of other health conditions.

[00:15:25] Hazel: Is there anything that you think that was, Either particularly hard or you say, [00:15:30] actually, that's what I learned from this experience.

[00:16:12] Karen: So he would visit, he was there every [00:16:15] single day, every day he was there for all his visiting time, spending time with my mum. And then when she was discharged in March, I guess the fact that her physical health had declined [00:16:30] significantly, she was in a wheelchair, she needed a lot of, um, caring, um, physical caring and support, and I think it's that massive change in their relationship, [00:16:45] um, to go from he's the person that has a terminal illness, she's the person who needs the day to day physical care, and there were times when my dad wasn't physically able to do that. [00:17:00] And my older brother was covering a lot of that, um, work for them both. That was hard. That was one of the hardest things.

[00:17:30] Karen: That's something that you're adjusting to over a period of time. You have to. You've had that, that news and that information. But seeing the change in their relationship, and I think for my dad, wanting their relationship to be as it had been, and [00:17:45] it couldn't possibly be. Because my mum was not the same person, um, physically, and obviously with the onset of her dementia, it was a different dynamic, and I think that was just desperately sad.[00:18:00]

[00:18:13] Karen: [00:18:15] And you're right, I think that's the other thing that's hard is, adjusting to that diagnosis of dementia.

[00:18:57] Karen: And just, you'd have the same conversation [00:19:00] about an object, whether it's a car or a coat over and over. And I think it's, you're then recognising there's a loss, I've lost maybe that opportunity to have a [00:19:15] conversation, um, about something because I don't know whether I'm getting reliable information and I'm not sure which version of my mum I'm getting in this conversation today.

[00:19:50] Hazel: Well, that's why it's such a horrible condition that, yeah, that it almost takes to have the big conversations sooner rather than later.

[00:20:12] Karen: Yeah. So as I said, with my dad, having [00:20:15] had that diagnosis of terminal illness, you, you fall back into that pattern of how your relationship is and the things that you might talk about.

[00:20:55] Karen: And don't get me wrong, it wasn't like there was a massive elephant in the room that we'd never [00:21:00] explored that I felt was completely missing from our relationship. But I just reflected that. I have made an assumption, without really thinking about it, that, oh my gosh, if you hear that someone you love's got a terminal illness, that you'll have all these amazing, [00:21:15] meaningful conversations.

[00:21:33] Hazel: Yeah. And that's, that's the thing, isn't it? It's, uh, for people who might be listening, who are confronting the death of a parent to [00:21:45] recognize that you have to make the effort to talk about the big things, if there is an elephant in the room, if there is a conversation that you desperately think needs to happen, that it's not going to necessarily just occur spontaneously because [00:22:00] the time is short.

[00:22:23] Karen: I know I'm coming across as very composed, but it is a hard subject to talk about. Yeah, [00:22:30] it is. That we probably should talk about more and think about, um, what does a good death look like? So, me coming back to us wanting as a family for both my parents to be [00:22:45] able to die at home. You're not going to escape the dying part.

[00:23:23] Hazel: Well, I cannot improve on that. So, thank you so much. It's really powerful and, [00:23:30] uh, I really do appreciate it. Because I know, yes, you are finding ways to talk about this calmly, but it's, it's a tough one. But thank you.

[00:23:48] Hazel: There's so much we can take from Karen's story. The bit I wanted to focus on, though, was the having the big conversations, those ones that when you find out that there is no more [00:24:00] time that you can regret not having. So just in case that you're in that situation and you'd like to have some of those conversations, well, here's a way to do that.

[00:24:35] Hazel: We'll talk about that in a moment. But if you are in a position to be able to have them, then well, let's think about how you might do it. The first step is to clearly signal this is [00:24:45] important. So I need to talk to you about not, how are you? Because that only goes one way. If I'm fine or I'm not fine, but be able to say very clearly. I need to talk to you about something and keep it factual [00:25:00] about what happened. The three elements to think here are truth, intent, and contribution. Trying to avoid my truth is the truth. You intended what you did and it's all your fault kind of conversations. Uh, they don't tend to go down [00:25:15] very well.

[00:25:35] Hazel: And then to think about contribution rather than blame, because contribution says everybody contributes in some way, usually to any complex situation. So you start [00:25:45] to think about sharing. And this is how I think I got us here because that stops people feeling like it's just an attack. They can feel open to having a conversation about something that's quite difficult.

[00:26:23] Hazel: Name it, and place it. If you can name an emotion, to be specific about how you're feeling, you can move [00:26:30] through it more quickly. And if you can place it, Is this to do with now? Is this to do with the conversation we're actually having? And if it is, then we'll put it on the table and talk about it as part of the conversation.

[00:27:06] Hazel: And if you imagine identity as being sort of based on three key pillars that we balance on. We want to feel good, that's acting in line [00:27:15] with our values. We want to feel capable, that's usually to do a good job. And we want to feel worthy of love. Or respected, or liked, if that's too squirmy. So for example, Mom, I need to talk to you about something difficult.[00:27:30]

[00:27:48] Hazel: I was scared about the answer before, but now I'm ready to know, and I love you, whatever the answer is. If you want to read up a bit more about this, there is a fabulous book [00:28:00] called Difficult Conversations by the Harvard Negotiation Project. They give you lots of practical tips on having these kind of really hard conversations.

[00:28:41] Hazel: In an approach called systemic constellations, [00:28:45] which I learned from an exceptional teacher called John Whittington, there is a way of representing your family system and of having the conversations that need to happen, but with a representative of that family member, whether it's an object or a spot on the floor, it doesn't really matter.[00:29:00]

[00:29:29] Hazel: The researchers [00:29:30] behind the grief curve that most people know about, which is Elizabeth Kubler Ross and David Kessler, they identified that sense making is also part of the process. In David's book, Finding Meaning, he provides a roadmap to remembering people who've [00:29:45] died with more love than pain. And there is a quick summary on my grief fact sheets that you can download by clicking on the link in the show notes.

[00:30:13] Hazel: I can't do it. [00:30:15] It actually moves you out of the past and into the present. So don't worry about the depression part. To miss somebody and really miss them. It's totally normal. And then we move into the testing. Before it [00:30:30] was, oh, I can't, I can't deal with this. And then suddenly it becomes, could I? And finally acceptance.

[00:31:13] Hazel: Each time [00:31:15] it can be slightly easier to bear as you welcome the emotion like a sad old friend with a recognition and compassion and then let it go like leaves in a stream.

[00:32:02] Hazel: I'm Hazel Showell, and I hope you'll join me again for another episode of Endings.