The eighth and final station of late life (or Grieving/Legacy) requires emotional work and time to accomplish. Grieving for a loved one’s death takes place over a longer period of time. Different family members have different emotional needs during the process of moving on.

	“A good death for our parents means a better life for us.” – Dennis McCullough

Acknowledging Your Support System
As you look back, be appreciative of those who offered their help. There is a need to bring a formal end to the “temporary family” who gathered to provide caregiving. Acknowledging one another’s contributions helps each member move on in their lives. Say your thanks for the service of others.

Returning to Our Lives
After the death of a loved one, the pressure to return quickly to our lives is present. Resuming regular routines is difficult after an extended time of caregiving. Finding your own ways to grieve may include creating your own personal rituals, connecting with your religious community, or leaning on close friends.

Maintaining Communication
During the time of caregiving, you built the skills needed to talk with family members and others about your loved one’s care. Communication often turns inward for mourners. Respect the importance of these “internal talks” until you’re ready to share your emotions. Remember that you are modeling grief, celebration of a life, and strength for your children and grandchildren who have less experience with loss.

Accepting Kindness
Along with saying thanks, allow yourself to accept extensions of kindness. Friends often risk treading into uncertain territory to reach out. Don’t travel down the easy road of slipping out of friends’ lives. This is especially important for your widowed mother or father.

Late life journeys are unpredictable to the very end. The daily practice of caring for an elder’s needs increases our capacity for compassion. The human experience of death reorders priorities. Allow these changes to enrich your own life and relationships.  

By late life, most elders and their families recognize that life must come to it natural end. Often, the longer the journey, the more comfortable our aged parents become with the idea of death. Dennis McCullough, author of “My Mother, Your Mother,” feels that being fully engaged through all the preceding stations of Late Life builds the emotional and spiritual capital to support ourselves during the Station of Death. Caregivers are better prepared for “closing the circle of life.”

Care for Active Dying

Weigh the pros and cons of the locations of dying and the family work entailed with each choice. If your loved one must remain in a hospital, palliative care services focus on symptom relief without excessive testing or intrusive methods.

Know the difference between what is convenient and efficient and what is humane for the elder.

Remain present through the end of your parent’s life. By staying connected, you will experience the “ceremony of passing life to those who remain.”

Protecting the Elder

Get comfortable with how to handle visits and calls from supportive friends. If the time is not right, offer to meet at another time.

Know “how much visiting is too much.” Be aware of the elder’s responses, act as a gatekeeper, and guide activities to get the most quality out of those remaining days.

Let the elder admit to the anxieties surrounding death. Create a calm environment with gentle touch, soft music, and pleasant words.

Support at the End

The additional care needed by a dying elder can mean dealing with new faces. Keep the elder’s support system visible by introducing yourself to the new doctors and attendants.

Ask local religious professionals for their involvement and draw on their support.

Contact a funeral home in the final days before death, and meet the people who will help your family after your parent’s death occurs.

Working with Medical Staff

Medication in the final days “creates a positive sense of comfort for the dying elder.” If your parent is not comfortable, talk to the physicians and nurses to make sure that your goals are achieved.

While some may find comfort in the hums and clicks of medical machines, the sounds can draw attention away from the dying elder. Consider paring down machinery at the bedside.

In the final days, physical needs will be met by others. Share nursing care with professionals, and the “memory of your hands-on care will long remain with you.”

Acknowledging death is a challenge. By the sixth station of late life (or Prelude to Dying), families have learned to note the most subtle changes in an elder’s behavior and responses. Deciding to “walk the walk” consists of noticing clues that generally precede an elder’s passage into death. Dennis McCullough, author of “My Mother, Your Mother,” advises children of aging parents to be aware of what emotions you project onto your parent during this downturn.

By this station, the practice of slow medicine has given you confidence as a caregiver and allowed you to know your parent fully. Despite having less control at this stage, you can still be an active caregiver by taking these steps.

Keep elders moving.
With age, elders suffer from paper-thin skin with aching joints. Improve circulation and change pressure points with small changes in position like moving to a favorite chair or shifting in bed to look out the window.

Find single-person activities.        
Arts are a great outlet and easy to manage for elders who may be confined to their beds. Listen to music, read poems aloud, or look at family photo albums.

Accept uncertainty.
During the late stations of life, a feeling of uncertainty is ever present. Spend your energy getting “emotionally centered,” not trying to control the situation.

Take care of yourself.
As with the previous stations, taking time to address your own needs provides a better environment for yourself and your elderly parent.

Use a communication tree.
Have a written list of who will call whom when the loved one passes away.

Balance individual needs with standard protocol.
As with the Station of Decline, greater comfort and quality can be achieved by eliminating some medications. Slow Medicine teaches that a last-ditch treatment may relieve small symptoms but can keep an elder from enjoying the remaining pleasures of life.

Learn about POLST.
POLST (or physician orders for life-sustaining treatment) goes beyond DNR orders. Actions such as testing, intravenous fluids, tube feeding, and antibiotics are commonly used with failing and ill elders. Become familiar with the decisions you'll have to make before you have to make them.