CAROLYN HAX

ADVICE WITH ATTITUDE & A GROUNDED SET OF VALUES

Dear Carolyn: I have a parent in an assisted-living facility with an illness that will cause death soon, regardless

of COVID-19. This is and has been incredibly difficult on my other parent.

My job involves strategic public health planning and policy, and we are all-handson-deck to solve problems when they come up.

Happy to serve, but my days can be very bleak, looking at what we are planning for. I know we are worst-case-scenario planners, but still.

My healthy parent has tearful conversations with me about the parent in assisted living dying during this pandemic, our not being able to say goodbye, and having a funeral ceremony rushed. I totally understand and I feel the same things.

But I think this parent wants me to tell them it will be OK, and I just can’t. I can’t do it. I can’t lie to them or tell them everything will probably be OK because I am looking at literal data that says otherwise.

I don’t know what I’m asking, but I think the parent reaching out to me for support is disappointed in my responses.

What do other people do in similar situations, if they know one reality but someone clearly wants reassurance that a fantasy will happen?

— I Can’t Be All Kitties and Rainbows

Dear I Can’t Be All Kitties and Rain

bows: I’m sorry you have bad news from so many sources right now.

I’m also sorry in advance that this answer is going to start out really dark.

We are all looking at “literal data” that says otherwise when we tell ourselves everything is going to be OK. Right? Since it’s

all going to end for every single one of us? And it’s just a matter of when and how?

That we come up with “OK” as an outcome in any situation is, therefore, a matter of degrees, increments, immediacy and no small amount of spin.

By this I mean, we always define “OK” based on what’s available to us, and not on the kind of fantasy happy ending you’re talking about. Always.

So your job, as the person being asked for reassuring words, is to do what humans are always called upon to do: to define some available version of “OK,” to help your parent feel better.

But not before you recognize and acknowledge the full scope of the pain. “I understand and I’m devastated, too. This is so terrible. I’m sorry I can’t make it better.”

Then, if your parent seeks reassurance, promise what you can still promise: that you and your healthy parent will get through this together, emotionally if not physically; that you all love each other and always will; that a time will come when you can hold a proper ceremony, and hug each other.

So “it” won’t all be OK, but in time you as people and as a family will be OK, as you grieve and as time allows you to remember this parent less with the pain of these circumstances, and more with memories, happiness, love.