When I first accepted my position at JFS working with older adults, I realized that I would lose many of them to death but, in the beginning, it was abstract. Because we have the privilege here to form long term relationships, care managers are affected deeply when clients die. Our relationships with clients feel like a secret window into a place outside of regular time; death abruptly shuts that window.
One of the first skills we develop, out of necessity, is compartmentalization. We must be able to absorb the news of a death while continuing the work of the day. That work requires being fully present for the next scheduled client who needs and deserves all of our attention, even if we just received bad news.
Many of our clients are completely isolated due to frailty, poverty or a lifetime of conflicted relationships. That might mean that a care manager is the only person sitting next to someone in her final hours. It is a lot to hold.
For those clients who’ve had intact families, we support those families in their grief and guide them in practical matters. But intact families typically have natural supports with which to navigate the process.
For clients with conflicted relationships – those who have left many frustrations and loose ends behind for their adult children – the most difficult emotion for the children is often the loss of hope. The hopeful child inside always wants to believe that insight, understanding and reconciliation are possible, even if years have gone by without an inkling of change. Death dashes that hope, and it can be a rough landing.
Care managers are able to have relationships with clients outside of the conflicts they’ve experienced with others, so we can often help a client’s adult children to see their parent in a different light. This can ease some of the pain. We can help them see a parent as an individual with his own trauma, limitations, even mental illness. We can sometimes bring to light that a parent, regardless of her parenting inadequacies, truly loved her children. And knowing that one was loved can be very freeing. Out of that new-found freedom, the future feels possible.
By Lani Scheman
Lani is a Geriatric Care Manager in the Aging in Place program. She has worked with a variety of populations for over thirty years. Lani is a longtime resident of Capitol Hill, living with her partner Scott and a Chesapeake Bay retriever. She is interested in just about everything but has a special passion for literature, photography, book arts and the beauty of the natural world.
Photo by Cristian Iohan Stefanescu
