What to expect when your parent is dying
That’s the title of a book I wish I had at my fingertips right now.
My 82-year old mom, Ingrid, has been in hospital in Cologne, Germany, since February 2021. Her cardiologist noticed she wasn’t eating right and seemed depressed, and recommended she be admitted to a psycho-somatic clinic. That precipitated a number of tests and treatments which, shockingly, resulted in a completely different diagnosis from what we expected: that of advanced (as in stage 4) lymphoma.
I am her only child, and am now heading into the life-stage work I knew would come and have dreaded for a long time: making end of life care arrangements for my mother who lives a continent and ocean away from me, for good reasons.
There are many things about this experience that are already proving jarring: dusting off my German (a language I haven’t used much in 30+ years) to speak with her doctors; confronting deeply ingrained mother-child dynamics and patterns that drove me away from her in the first place; navigating more family dynamics, given the concern of her older sister and indifference of her younger brother; and navigating the German bureaucracy surrounding long-term care, financial assistance and — lest we forget — the judgement by strangers of daughters who desert their mothers and live an ocean and continent away. Oh, and of course I am doing all this during the COVID-19 pandemic, so the logistics of going over to Germany to help her transition to nursing care are extra challenging.
This is the start of a series of posts to process my experience. And just maybe they are useful to others who are wondering #WhatToExpectWhenYourParentIsDying
