stage: 6

Grieving someone you lost in stages — the particular weight of dementia bereavement

Grieving for someone with dementia is rarely a single event at the point of death. Most people who have cared for a parent with dementia describe a series of losses over years — the loss of conversation, of recognition, of shared history, of the person they knew. By the time death comes, some of that grief has already been lived through. This does not mean the death itself is easy. It often unlocks a different layer of grief, for the person who was there in the final years, for the relationship that existed in that form, and sometimes for the earlier version of the person who has been gone for much longer. There is no correct way to grieve this. Some people feel relief first and guilt about the relief second. Some feel surprisingly little at the time and find it arrives later. Professional bereavement counselling can help, particularly if the grief feels stuck or complicated by the length and difficulty of the caring period.