There's a grief in caregiving that has nothing to do with losing someone, it's the grief of losing a future you'd already pictured. In this episode, The Blue Hug Lady talks about the loss of an imagined future, the guilt that often comes with it, and how caregivers can find room again for their own independence.

Takeaways:

• This podcast episode explores the profound complexities of caregiving, emphasizing the unique grief that accompanies the caregiving journey.
• We discuss the notion that caregivers often face a companion grief, mourning the future they had envisioned with their loved ones.
• The episode highlights that loss can manifest in subtle ways, well before any physical decline occurs in the person being cared for.
• We emphasize the importance of recognizing and addressing the feelings of guilt that caregivers may experience as they navigate their own independence.
• Listeners are encouraged to reflect on their own experiences, considering how caregiving has altered their envisioned futures and what small pieces of independence they can reclaim.
• The podcast concludes by affirming the shared experience of caregivers, reminding them that they are not alone in their journey.

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Blue Hug
• Brilliant Beam Media

This is the Blue Hug Journal, where we talk honestly about caregiving, dignity, and the moments that matter.

Today's piece, the life you thought you'd have, C.S.

Lewis is attributed with this quote.

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.

He wrote it about the death of his wife.

But that fear reaches caregivers long before any death arrives, and often before any real decline at all.

This isn't the grief we covered in an earlier episode, the one that comes from watching someone change in front of you.

This is a companion grief, the grief of a future that's grown uncertain.

It shows up the day a retirement trip gets canceled.

It shows up again the day a career move stops being possible.

And it shows up hardest on the day.

Two people who once imagined growing old together realize that their version of old age is going to look nothing like what they'd planned.

This kind of loss is easy to miss because nothing has technically disappeared yet.

The person is still here.

The relationship is still here.

But the future both of them were building toward has changed shape.

There's no funeral for a future.

No casserole shows up for the loss of a plan.

Caregivers often carry this alongside a strange kind of guilt, as though mourning their own independence somehow means loving the person they care for a little less.

It doesn't.

A person can hold deep love for someone and still grieve the version of their own life that caregiving has rearranged around them.

Independence for a caregiver doesn't always mean living entirely on your own terms.

Sometimes it looks smaller than that.

A weekend away made possible by a respite plan that actually holds up, a bathing routine that runs smoothly enough on its own that you get an hour back in your week, an hour, once earmarked for something else you loved doing.

The future doesn't have to match the one you originally pictured to still be worth having.

Here are three questions to ask.

First, what is one future you had pictured that caregiving has changed and have you let yourself grieve it?

Second, where in your week could you reclaim even a small piece of independence for yourself?

Third, who in your life understands this particular kind of loss?

The one with no funeral and no casserole?

We're here for dignity, independence and comfort.

Share this with someone in the caregiving journey with you.

You're not doing this alone.

Bathe with us.

We're the Blue Hug.

The Blue Hug Journal is produced by the Blue Hug in partnership with Brilliant Beam Media.