[00:00:00] Hazel: Hi there, I'm Hazel Showell, and I'm here to guide you through the toughest transitions in life, business, and even love. I'm a business psychologist who coaches execs and founders to navigate the messy stuff of [00:00:15] life, from selling a business, the loss of something or someone important, to repairing relationships and restoring confidence.

[00:00:23] Hazel: Welcome to endings

[00:00:24] Karen:. The force of that news was, was like a blow. It was like I was reeling [00:00:30] on my feet, on my feet.

[00:00:32] Hazel: In this episode, you're going to hear from Karen Green, who as well as working for the Ford Motor Company for over 20 years, is also a really dear friend. Karen lost both [00:00:45] of her parents within two weeks of each other.

[00:00:49] Hazel: This is a story about having those big conversations you always meant to have before it's too late. By the end of this episode. I'll guide [00:01:00] you through some techniques to help you approach a conversation like that, whether in your professional or personal life.

[00:01:12] Hazel: Let's go back to the beginning. Karen is one of three. [00:01:15] She's got two brothers and the family are close.

[00:01:19] Karen: We come together, uh, pretty frequently, maybe every month, a couple of months, at my younger brother's house. He's got a lovely place. He has, uh, horses and [00:01:30] dogs. There's space for the kids to run around, have a big family meal.

[00:01:35] Karen: My mum pretty much always Bake a cake.

[00:01:42] Hazel: It was in 2019 that the [00:01:45] family first realized that Karen's mom might be struggling.

[00:01:47] Karen: We were on holiday in Spain, actually, at the time, mom had a first big fall, uh, where she broke her hip. And I guess [00:02:00] as folks get older, you can expect, and they do have little slips and falls and trips. I hadn't really thought very much of it.

[00:02:07] Karen: And it was actually the paramedics that said, To us as a family, there has to be a reason why she falls so often. [00:02:15] And you look back and realize, actually, you know, she has had a series of falls. So with that information, looking at it in more detail, that's when things are family, we realized. that this might be a start point for dementia.[00:02:30]

[00:02:30] Hazel: Karen's dad didn't seem so well either. He had pains down his arms and shortness of breath. So he went for blood tests.

[00:02:39] Karen: Straight out, he said, um, I've got an aggressive form of leukaemia. They've given me six to eight weeks to live. [00:02:45]

[00:02:45] Hazel: All of a sudden, Karen and her two brothers were faced with the task of caring for not one, but two parents.

[00:02:57] Karen: So we, uh, very quickly agreed as a [00:03:00] family that my younger brother fortunately had the facility to repurpose one of the rooms in his house on the ground floor. And that we could set that up as a space that my mom could eventually move into [00:03:15] and live, live there with him and his wife. And that all of the focus was on how quickly we could do that because this was the 17th of November and we weren't sure that my dad would make it to Christmas.

[00:03:28] Karen: So yeah, that whole [00:03:30] machinery kind of swung into motion and I think in a way that gave us something to focus on, something quite practical around what those arrangements would look like. And then I think for my dad, that [00:03:45] choice for his treatment around a more, very intensive form of chemotherapy, which would mean he'd have to remain in hospital versus a less intensive form of chemotherapy, which [00:04:00] would have less Likelihood of um, extending his life, but it would mean he could be, uh, having that treatment as an outpatient.

[00:04:08] Karen: And that's what he opted for. There was no, no choice, no option, consideration in his mind. It was maximizing the time [00:04:15] he could be essentially with my mum before he died.

[00:04:18] Hazel: If you can say a bit more about why it was so important you wanted them to be able to, to die at home.

[00:04:27] Karen: I think it's about control. It's about [00:04:30] Hospitals are great as far as they go, but the time in which my parents were ill, and then obviously clearly dying, COVID restrictions have been coming and going.

[00:04:43] Karen: So there were [00:04:45] times, uh, when we couldn't visit either parent in hospital, or only one person would be allowed at the bedside. And those changes kept coming back and forth around what you could and couldn't do. So having. [00:05:00] them at home. I think it's just gives you that control over your environment. I think it's about comfort.

[00:05:08] Karen: It's about familiarity. So you can have a good ending and that's [00:05:15] for the family as well as for the individual. You can have a good death, and I think that's maybe something we don't talk about very much, um, is what does a, what does a good death look like? And I think for my family, [00:05:30] we felt, we strongly felt we wanted our parents to be able to die at home.

[00:05:37] Karen: And yeah, hats off to the local hospice who enabled and supported us for my dad to die at home because they, [00:05:45] um, took on the role of providing care. morphine to him so he could be comfortable, uh, in his last days at home.

[00:05:52] Hazel: If you can, in your own words, just explain what happened to your mum and dad.

[00:05:57] Karen: My dad, he [00:06:00] beat out the time he was given, so it suggested he had six to eight weeks.

[00:06:06] Karen: He actually survived for 20 months, uh, which is amazing that we have that additional Time with my dad that we were not expecting. [00:06:15] I think a lot of our focus had been as inevitably it would be when you know, someone's got a terminal illness around my dad. And what he would do for him. And my mum's health continued to decline.

[00:06:27] Karen: She came out of hospital in [00:06:30] March, uh, of 2020. And her health had never been great. And that continued to slowly decline. Uh, my dad continued. And then fast forward to July of the following year. [00:06:45] And my dad was clearly declining. He'd lost a lot of weight. The chemo wasn't really doing anything for him. I think we had the advice from the hospital that this would, this was only a matter of time towards the end of July.

[00:06:58] Karen: And then unfortunately, at the same time, my [00:07:00] mum suffered a collapsed lung around the middle of July. So she was then in hospital, uh, discharged, had another collapsed lung event, was readmitted to hospital. I remember, actually, my mum wasn't eating [00:07:15] particularly well. They were both now at my younger brother's house, which is only half an hour from me. Uh, so I think we'd agreed I would go and see my mum in hospital, uh, which is about an hour away from me and try [00:07:30] and encourage her to eat. So I popped in and saw my dad, uh, on the way. And during this time I was at the hospital visiting my mum. He died. So he died on the 2nd of August.[00:07:45]

[00:07:45] Karen: And then in that dilemma of not telling my mum. She's in hospital. She's not in a familiar environment. She's got dementia. Some days she could be really lucid, other days less so. So we all agree we will wait and tell her. [00:08:00] Once she'd been discharged from the hospital, and then over the subsequent week it became clear that the treatments they were trying for her were not working.

[00:08:10] Karen: So a week, just about a week after my dad had died, the hospital advised us there was nothing [00:08:15] more they could do for my mum, and that she probably had only a short time to live. Which was a massive, massive shock. The saving grace, I think, for us is that, as I mentioned about it, being important for [00:08:30] her to be at home, not in that heavily regulated clinical environment where only one person at a time could be there.

[00:08:39] Karen: So we were able, with the support of the hospital, to have her discharged quite quickly, to come home, [00:08:45] or come to my brother's home. That was the Friday, and she died on the Monday. So they died exactly two weeks apart.

[00:08:54] Hazel: I can't imagine that loss. It's huge. [00:09:00] And thinking about the differences, what did you experience in terms of losing both parents, but in very different ways in such a short time?

[00:09:12] Karen: I think it's very different experiences [00:09:15] to lose a loved one when you've been told they've got a terminal illness, they're dying, and you're kind of preparing yourself for that. Compared to somebody dying unexpectedly, you're not [00:09:30] prepared for that at all. I think for my dad, there's that sort of acceptance, that processing, a lot of grief, shock, anger, upset, all at the outset of the [00:09:45] process.

[00:09:45] Karen: And then I think for me personally, you, you fall back into it being day to day. That you're kind of moving forwards. But you know, that person's got, um, there's a limited time for that [00:10:00] person, but you can't live in that grief every second of every day. So you're trying to make the most of the time that you have, but that really is about kind of doing everyday things.

[00:10:12] Karen: It's not trying to find those special [00:10:15] moments, those meaningful conversations, because that's exhausting. It's just doing everyday things that you would normally do. The experience with my mom was completely different. I think it's just being completely unprepared for it. All of [00:10:30] them say all of our focus, but having a lot of focus on knowing that my dad had a terminal illness and looking at what we could do for him and how we could support him and then thinking about the support structures we would have in place for my mom, [00:10:45] assuming that she would live, you know, a significant period of time beyond my dad. And then I think my mental thoughts were around, okay, once COVID is done and we can go out, you know, how my mum loves shopping, we'll [00:11:00] go out, I can take her out shopping and get used to how I could manoeuvre the wheelchair and with the car and think about how I would do all of those things and where we would go.

[00:11:08] Karen: But as a clinically vulnerable person, even when restrictions had been lifted a little, we were deliberately not [00:11:15] taking her out. So in the back of my mind, it's thinking, yeah, we'll get to do all these things. together. And then I felt, um, robbed, that had been sort of stolen from me, that all of these things I had hoped and wanted to do [00:11:30] with my mum, I didn't get the chance.

[00:11:34] Hazel: That's phenomenally hard. And looking back, what was unexpected that you learned about the process? So what did you find unexpected? [00:11:45]

[00:11:45] Karen: I could talk about work colleagues at this point. Something I hadn't anticipated was How other people would react in that my dad died on the Monday. And obviously I [00:12:00] came back from hospital to help with the feeding for my mom or encouraging her to eat popped in.And that's when I realized he died. I then drove home and I guess had some emails to do. So you fall into doing these things. [00:12:15] And for me, I found work a helpful distraction. So I drafted an email and I sent that the following afternoon saying that my dad had died. And I had a day off, a couple of days off already planned that week.[00:12:30]

[00:12:30] Karen: And I found people's reactions when I then came back to work a couple of days later were very much, Why are you here? You should be at home. You should be with your family. You should be I found that really quite [00:12:45] difficult.

[00:12:47] Hazel: And I know you described it as, you couldn't stand people policing your grief.

[00:12:51] Hazel: Because that is difficult if they have a sense of, Oh, you need to stop this, you need to do this. No, you need to [00:13:00] find a way to cope. However you do it

[00:13:03] Karen: it brings out strong emotions in people. I don't think as a, as a society, certainly in the UK, I don't think we talk about death very [00:13:15] much. It's that one certainty in life that we all face.

[00:13:19] Karen: For the most part, we don't talk about it or want to think about it for ourselves or for others. And I get that. I spent my childhood being [00:13:30] really scared of dying, as I can remember as a kid at primary school getting so upset every time my dad left for work because I thought I wasn't going to see him again.

[00:13:41] Karen: And I remember my mum sitting me down and saying to me, if you're scared of death, you're scared of life. And I think it's actually a very well made point. You know, and I'm not, I'm not saying that that kind of little quote made me think, [00:14:00] you know, I have no fear or this is all fine, but it helped me move forward.

[00:14:06] Karen: And I just reflect that having to have, you know, shared at work, cause you would do to say, look, I need to step away. I'm not going to be involved in these [00:14:15] projects for a bit. I'm handing them over. This is the reason why that sort of bereavement was out there in the open. People are aware that this had happened and it triggers something in other people.

[00:14:25] Karen: It, it, it brings up things, issues [00:14:30] around death, bereavement, people's own losses that they perhaps don't want to think about. And there's an element of people reliving that or thinking about that when they were talking to me. And I mentioned to you Hazel that, um, people want to, want to make [00:14:45] it make sense.

[00:14:45] Karen: I had a lot of comments about how quick, how short the distance of time that they died. In fact, it was only two weeks. People were saying they, they. They couldn't bear to be apart. [00:15:00] And it's, there's nothing to do with that. There's, there was no romanticism, nothing romantic. You know, when my dad had leukaemia, my mom had a collapsed lung and a series of other health conditions.

[00:15:12] Karen: It was nothing romantic about their deaths at [00:15:15] all. Um, that they couldn't bear to be apart. But that's what I mean around people want to find a reason, want to make it make sense for you or for themselves.

[00:15:25] Hazel: Is there anything that you think that was, Either particularly hard or you say, [00:15:30] actually, that's what I learned from this experience.

[00:15:34] Karen: For me personally, one of the hardest things was seeing my dad's [00:15:45] reaction to my mum's dementia. I, I felt desperately sorry for him in that having been diagnosed with a terminal illness in November, my mum then [00:16:00] having another fall just a month later and being in hospital. I think he was, facing the prospect of potentially dying whilst my mum was in hospital.

[00:16:12] Karen: So he would visit, he was there every [00:16:15] single day, every day he was there for all his visiting time, spending time with my mum. And then when she was discharged in March, I guess the fact that her physical health had declined [00:16:30] significantly, she was in a wheelchair, she needed a lot of, um, caring, um, physical caring and support, and I think it's that massive change in their relationship, [00:16:45] um, to go from he's the person that has a terminal illness, she's the person who needs the day to day physical care, and there were times when my dad wasn't physically able to do that. [00:17:00] And my older brother was covering a lot of that, um, work for them both. That was hard. That was one of the hardest things.

[00:17:10] Karen: And it's difficult to talk about because people hear the headline of, you've lost [00:17:15] both your parents within a fortnight. And that's the thing you think is hard. And I'm not saying it's not hard to lose both your parents, but when you know someone's got to turn around the shore mentally, Preparing for that.[00:17:30]

[00:17:30] Karen: That's something that you're adjusting to over a period of time. You have to. You've had that, that news and that information. But seeing the change in their relationship, and I think for my dad, wanting their relationship to be as it had been, and [00:17:45] it couldn't possibly be. Because my mum was not the same person, um, physically, and obviously with the onset of her dementia, it was a different dynamic, and I think that was just desperately sad.[00:18:00]

[00:18:00] Hazel: Oh, that, I mean, it's just awful to think about. But I know, you know, since the theme of this series is endings, that, you know, dementia is one where you have a double ending, because you lose them when they lose themselves.

[00:18:13] Karen: [00:18:15] And you're right, I think that's the other thing that's hard is, adjusting to that diagnosis of dementia.

[00:18:25] Karen: And my mum was very lucid. So I think, obviously, dementia looks different [00:18:30] between different people, how aggressive it is and how it impacts them, how much it might change their personality. She, for the most part, was always very aware of where she was, who we all were. What had happened, what was going on, um, but she would [00:18:45] fixate on particular things and sometimes not necessarily be aware of where she was in terms of which, which location, either my brother's house or her own house that she was in and where objects were.

[00:18:57] Karen: And just, you'd have the same conversation [00:19:00] about an object, whether it's a car or a coat over and over. And I think it's, you're then recognising there's a loss, I've lost maybe that opportunity to have a [00:19:15] conversation, um, about something because I don't know whether I'm getting reliable information and I'm not sure which version of my mum I'm getting in this conversation today.

[00:19:29] Karen: That was something [00:19:30] to adjust to as well as I've, I've. Missed that opportunity. That's gone. So for example, I've wanted to know more about her family, about family history. Am I getting correct information? [00:19:45] Is she recording the right information or not? That's really hard.

[00:19:50] Hazel: Well, that's why it's such a horrible condition that, yeah, that it almost takes to have the big conversations sooner rather than later.

[00:19:59] Hazel: 00:20:00] Don't assume there will be time or don't assume there will be a space. Uh, I know I was. That particularly resonated with me when you said, you know, you, you think there'll be the time for the big conversations and you end up talking about the weather.

[00:20:12] Karen: Yeah. So as I said, with my dad, having [00:20:15] had that diagnosis of terminal illness, you, you fall back into that pattern of how your relationship is and the things that you might talk about.

[00:20:25] Karen: If there is a big conversation, you know, why did this thing [00:20:30] happen between you, whatever it might be, if you haven't, you have to make time and space for those conversations. They're not going to happen. And if you haven't already had that conversation, I don't know, [00:20:45] you didn't feel right to me to, to drive some kinds of conversation because someone's got a diagnosis of terminal illness.

[00:20:55] Karen: And don't get me wrong, it wasn't like there was a massive elephant in the room that we'd never [00:21:00] explored that I felt was completely missing from our relationship. But I just reflected that. I have made an assumption, without really thinking about it, that, oh my gosh, if you hear that someone you love's got a terminal illness, that you'll have all these amazing, [00:21:15] meaningful conversations.

[00:21:16] Karen: No, you don't, you carry on as you were. It's very much business as usual, at least that's my experience, right, that we just kind of carried on talking, not maybe quite [00:21:30] about the weather, but about day to day life.

[00:21:33] Hazel: Yeah. And that's, that's the thing, isn't it? It's, uh, for people who might be listening, who are confronting the death of a parent to [00:21:45] recognize that you have to make the effort to talk about the big things, if there is an elephant in the room, if there is a conversation that you desperately think needs to happen, that it's not going to necessarily just occur spontaneously because [00:22:00] the time is short.

[00:22:01] Hazel: Choose to have them if you want to. It's an important thing to, to learn and one thing I just want to say is, is it's such a tough subject and know in British culture we are rubbish at talking [00:22:15] about death and dying, but, you know, to support people in that space who are there right now. Thank you so much.

[00:22:23] Karen: I know I'm coming across as very composed, but it is a hard subject to talk about. Yeah, [00:22:30] it is. That we probably should talk about more and think about, um, what does a good death look like? So, me coming back to us wanting as a family for both my parents to be [00:22:45] able to die at home. You're not going to escape the dying part.

[00:22:49] Karen: But where you die, who you have around you, your environment, those familiar things that give not just the person that's dying, but the people around them [00:23:00] comfort and solace and a feeling of control, I think is really powerful. I'm thankful for both my parents. We were able to arrange for them [00:23:15] to be in a in a comfortable environment, in an environment they were familiar with for their, for their last hours.

[00:23:23] Hazel: Well, I cannot improve on that. So, thank you so much. It's really powerful and, [00:23:30] uh, I really do appreciate it. Because I know, yes, you are finding ways to talk about this calmly, but it's, it's a tough one. But thank you.

Karen: You're welcome.[00:23:45]

[00:23:48] Hazel: There's so much we can take from Karen's story. The bit I wanted to focus on, though, was the having the big conversations, those ones that when you find out that there is no more [00:24:00] time that you can regret not having. So just in case that you're in that situation and you'd like to have some of those conversations, well, here's a way to do that.

[00:24:10] Hazel: But first, I would think, does the conversation need to happen at all? [00:24:15] How would you feel if you didn't do it? Some people can be, very rightly, worried about upsetting somebody who is terminally ill. And, yeah, that has absolute you know, right to think about that. And there [00:24:30] may be some conversations that you simply let go and don't need to.

[00:24:35] Hazel: We'll talk about that in a moment. But if you are in a position to be able to have them, then well, let's think about how you might do it. The first step is to clearly signal this is [00:24:45] important. So I need to talk to you about not, how are you? Because that only goes one way. If I'm fine or I'm not fine, but be able to say very clearly. I need to talk to you about something and keep it factual [00:25:00] about what happened. The three elements to think here are truth, intent, and contribution. Trying to avoid my truth is the truth. You intended what you did and it's all your fault kind of conversations. Uh, they don't tend to go down [00:25:15] very well.

[00:25:15] Hazel: Whereas when you can start with, this is what I know, this is what I think, or I believe, but I don't know it's the truth. It's just my truth. And I know the impact of what you did on me, but I don't know. If that's what you intended, [00:25:30] or you may know the impact of what I did. But I don't think you know what I intended.

[00:25:35] Hazel: And then to think about contribution rather than blame, because contribution says everybody contributes in some way, usually to any complex situation. So you start [00:25:45] to think about sharing. And this is how I think I got us here because that stops people feeling like it's just an attack. They can feel open to having a conversation about something that's quite difficult.

[00:25:58] Hazel: If you think about this [00:26:00] as like an iceberg, this is the above the waterline stuff, but. The bit that lurks under the water, making the water choppy, is emotion. Now, we know in some cultures, not great at dealing with emotion, and some are. [00:26:15] If you want to be able to deal with the emotion that's causing the, as I said, water to get a little rough, then you have to do two things.

[00:26:23] Hazel: Name it, and place it. If you can name an emotion, to be specific about how you're feeling, you can move [00:26:30] through it more quickly. And if you can place it, Is this to do with now? Is this to do with the conversation we're actually having? And if it is, then we'll put it on the table and talk about it as part of the conversation.

[00:26:43] Hazel: But if this [00:26:45] emotion is triggered by something that happened in the past, if it's your past, we'll check it at the door, deal with it. So you want to just deal with the emotion that is really part of the conversation. But then [00:27:00] what really creates emotion, the seabed, almost the tsunami effect, is identity.

[00:27:06] Hazel: And if you imagine identity as being sort of based on three key pillars that we balance on. We want to feel good, that's acting in line [00:27:15] with our values. We want to feel capable, that's usually to do a good job. And we want to feel worthy of love. Or respected, or liked, if that's too squirmy. So for example, Mom, I need to talk to you about something difficult.[00:27:30]

[00:27:30] Hazel: Can I say what I need to say, and then we can talk about it? I've always had the feeling there was someone missing. Like you intended to keep secrets, and I couldn't trust you. But I don't think you intended that. And I felt a bit too awkward [00:27:45] to ask if there's anything you need to tell me about our family.

[00:27:48] Hazel: I was scared about the answer before, but now I'm ready to know, and I love you, whatever the answer is. If you want to read up a bit more about this, there is a fabulous book [00:28:00] called Difficult Conversations by the Harvard Negotiation Project. They give you lots of practical tips on having these kind of really hard conversations.

[00:28:10] Hazel: But if it is too late, then the best thing to work on is acceptance. [00:28:15] If you imagine, visualize a piece of paper, write the question that you would have asked on it, crumple it into a ball and let it drift away. As if you just dropped it into a stream and you watch it [00:28:30] drift past you. That said, from my work as a systemic coach, even if somebody has died or left, it isn't too late to resolve the impact on you.

[00:28:41] Hazel: In an approach called systemic constellations, [00:28:45] which I learned from an exceptional teacher called John Whittington, there is a way of representing your family system and of having the conversations that need to happen, but with a representative of that family member, whether it's an object or a spot on the floor, it doesn't really matter.[00:29:00]

[00:29:00] Hazel: Humans have an amazing capacity to represent one thing for another, and you can use this capacity to heal. It means conversations can happen long after someone died or left or if you don't want the conversation in person. [00:29:15] I explore this a bit more in Walter's episode. One final point. Karen found people's tendency to make sense of her parent’s death in an overly romantic way, like the broken heart syndrome, deeply annoying.

[00:29:29] Hazel: The researchers [00:29:30] behind the grief curve that most people know about, which is Elizabeth Kubler Ross and David Kessler, they identified that sense making is also part of the process. In David's book, Finding Meaning, he provides a roadmap to remembering people who've [00:29:45] died with more love than pain. And there is a quick summary on my grief fact sheets that you can download by clicking on the link in the show notes.

[00:29:53] Hazel: And I won't ask for your info. If you need them, you can have them. But as a quick summary Well, you [00:30:00] might all know about the shock and denial and anger, like anger at the person who's died, God or other people. And that might also explain Karen's annoyance a little. That phase is followed by bargaining, sometimes guilt and depression.

[00:30:13] Hazel: I can't do it. [00:30:15] It actually moves you out of the past and into the present. So don't worry about the depression part. To miss somebody and really miss them. It's totally normal. And then we move into the testing. Before it [00:30:30] was, oh, I can't, I can't deal with this. And then suddenly it becomes, could I? And finally acceptance.

[00:30:37] Hazel: I can. But it's not, I can get through this, it's, I can accept they've gone, and I can accept sometimes [00:30:45] I'm not okay. It's more an integration of the loss. As researchers say, these are typical reactions to grief, but there is no typical grieving process. You grieve your way. It's also worth remembering that [00:31:00] grieving is the process, grief is the emotion, the overwhelming sense of loss and wherever you are in the grieving process you can be triggered to experience grief by music, smells, places, etc.

[00:31:13] Hazel: Each time [00:31:15] it can be slightly easier to bear as you welcome the emotion like a sad old friend with a recognition and compassion and then let it go like leaves in a stream.

[00:31:29] Hazel: [00:31:30] Karen, for sharing your story. I know it was difficult. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Endings. And if you'd like to share your thoughts, well, I'd love to hear them. You can reach me at HazelCS on LinkedIn or Twitter. And if you'd [00:31:45] like more information on living with grief, or supporting others through their bereavement, then you can download the fact sheets that accompany this episode. Finally, if you know someone who might benefit from hearing about coping with a bereavement, then do share this episode with them.

[00:32:02] Hazel: I'm Hazel Showell, and I hope you'll join me again for another episode of Endings.