Mourning the Death of a Spouse

By CarePatrol of Chicago Northshore

When a spouse dies, your world changes. After the initial shock and fear, the surviving spouse is left to deal with the physical and emotional mourning pains.  There may be sleepless nights and a loss of appetite, making it hard to make decisions. Having good and bad days are normal.  Some people feel better quickly, while others take longer to recover from the loss. As time passes, you have to start putting your life back together. 

Family and friends should be around to assist you. You may start to realize that it is okay to enjoy going out to dinner with friends or laughing at your grand-kids jokes. There comes a time when you'll have to face the changes in your life.  One of these changes may be the necessity for a different senior living arrangement.

When a family decides to work with CarePatrol, we develop a strong relationship that lasts way beyond a senior living placement. We often work with a client for months (and longer) as we develop a long-term care plan and work towards a senior living solution. We stay in touch with families after placement in case care needs change. During that time, life happens - health conditions change, care needs increase, finances get spent down, and spouses die.

As a Care Patrol Senior Advisor, I have been on many phone calls, taken long walks, visited many hospitals and drank a lot of coffee with spouses that needed help with the next steps after the death of their spouse.  When our client Rita’s husband died, in addition to finding an assisted living community, she needed help finding an attorney to write a new will, look into a durable power of attorney in case she was unable to make her own medical decisions, put her home on the market, and find a way to donate her husband’s books, tools and model train collection.  Care Patrol was there for her every step of the way.