Preparing for the Death of a Spouse

Introduction
It is complicated and painful to lose a spouse. The family bears the brunt for such a loss. One of the essential things following the loss of a spouse is getting to understand the circumstances that surrounded the loss and its secondary effects. Healing can only take place after the acceptance visits (Glazer et al., 2010). The level of grief is determined by one's social setting, resources, and relationships. People's response to a loss such as a bereavement differs and is unique to individuals, yet it is socially experienced. The survivors affect an individual's response to loss. The response also affects the overall impact. The impact is also affected by the changing circumstances and processes of coping, including their psychosocial and spiritual growth. This study aims at setting the psychosocial and physical coping ground for the loss of a spouse. The study aims at exploring the approaches that can be adopted to help a spouse cope with the loss of their mate. It examines the steps, the emotional, mental, and physical aspects of assisting a spouse who is dying. It also looks at the self-agency methods that a spouse and family can adopt to help them cope.
Helping spouse cope - Kubler Ross Steps
The five steps outlined by Kubler Ross (1969) include denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. They are meant to help one to learn to live with the loss of a spouse or any loved one. These are tools that help one to pick out what feeling one is experiencing. However, they should not be construed to provide some linear timeline in the period of grief. It should additionally be noted that not everyone goes through all the steps highlighted (Kubler-Ross, 1969).
Denial
The denial stage normally takes a short period. Many people begin to accept it soon after they enter bereavement. At this point, a widow may be helped by guiding them to embrace reality because denial gives the opportunity to absorb the fact and start processing it gradually.
Anger
Anger is when the feelings of the earlier stages are released in an outburst of grief and are directed at anyone in sight. Help for a widow here calls for guiding them to think rationally regarding the developments and feel what she has been trying to brush aside.
Bargaining
Bargaining is when a person clings to unfounded hope, even in the face of glaring facts. It may come out openly in the form of panic or show with an inner conversation unnoticed by other people. A widow can be helped at this point by counseling them to accept the reality of the loss of her spouse.
Depression
Anyone who experiences loss naturally experiences depression. To assist a widow to overcome depression at this stage, engaging a mental health expert's advice or a therapist would be helpful.
Acceptance
Acceptance does not necessarily involve happiness. It does not imply that the widow has moved past the emotions of grief and loss. It would help to let her understand that she has gone through a significant change in her life. She should be informed that the change is going to influence the way she views life and feels about it. He should be informed that there are times days may be bad, but there are those that they will be great, but that's still okay.
Emotional, mental and physical aspects of helping a dying spouse
If a spouse is caring for a dying partner, such factors as emotional strain, physical strain, the available support, coping crises, adaptability, and resilience all affect the experience. The majority of those who care for widows who were dying extended the maximum care for their mates, including feeding them and washing them (Madsen, Birkelund & Uhrenfeldt, 2019). A lot of such care-givers ended up with their health complications. These were occasioned by the emotional and physical strain of caring for their spouses. The strain was worsened by the deteriorating state of the health of their spouses (Alvariza et al., 2020; Turner et al., 2016). The care-givers talk of having to call the ambulance, neighbors, and those who were nearby to help them carry their spouse to where they wanted them to be, or rush them to healthcare facilities. Such instances left both the patient and the spouse caring for the vulnerable and with plenty of fear for the inevitable and about the ability to continue caring.
While providing care for a loved one is challenging to people across the age spectrum, it is twice as challenging to the older adults because they still have to take care of their physical shortcomings too (Madsen et al., 2019; Turner et al., 2016). The care often extends for long periods, yet most care-givers want to sacrifice for all the time they are needed to provide such care because they feel it is the last honor they can give their spouses. Thus, the social care service providers and healthcare personnel need to support the latter group so that they sustain care until the end (Alvariza et al., 2020).
Spouse & children coping (Self-help), anger because of dying spouse, anger (from being the care-giver) dealing with help from parent and extending family, Helping children
Self-help coping
Widows often maneuver through their new world by taking up the roles that their spouses held while alive. These include managing businesses and even household roles. It means, therefore, that relearning is a necessary survival skill for such a population. Several secondary losses occur as a result of losing a spouse or a parent. It is, therefore, important to accommodate the losses by assuming duties and tasks and setting priority activities. The effect of such an approach is that the whole system becomes invigorated, and the capacity to survive is rebuilt. By accommodation here, we mean being able to move through the process of healing and establishing a new normal. It must be appreciated that grief is very much part of the healing process (Glazer et al., 2010). While overcoming the effects of loss is personal, getting to understand the wide array of possible responses is a useful self-help tool, being involved with other people within the community, staying in touch, being involved with family, and accessing the required medical attention is pertinent to recovery from loss.
Coping with anger
Anger is an uncommon reaction to the loss of a husband. One may feel angry at the loss and direct such anger at the healthcare giver, the employer, the deceased, or God. One may even feel angry at those who still have their husbands alive. The ager at the deceased could be triggered by a feeling that the deceased has left them with the burden to care for the children alone (Jones et al., 2019).
Dealing with help from parent and extended family
The spouse’s loss or a loved one causes turmoil to the family setup. Seeking help from parents of members of the extended family may be helpful with needs such as school fees, housing, financial matters, and handling the various complicated emotions. However, there is a need to develop a long term plan for the sake of sustainability, particularly with financial sources and housing.
Helping children
There is a demand to give attention to the following aspects when the support is directed at a child. It is important to be aware that grief incorporates physical, behavioral, emotional, and cognitive responses to loss (Kronaizl, 2019). Grieving children like to ask questions. They should be provided with an environment in which they can ask questions freely and get honest answers. Thus, they need to be treated with honesty and openness, provided with accurate information that is also sensitive to their developmental stage, and be offered a role model to manage their emotions. Children's conception of death should be put in perspective and guided as appropriate, and the import of the overall loss explained (Kronaizl, 2019).
Conclusion
The relationship between life quality, how one is assisted in coping, their ability to maintain a stable internal environment, and related predictors are based on the coping of widows to loss, the balance of intimacy, and how long they lasted in grief. Widows with children must not relent but seek to adapt. The reaction of children to loss, on the other hand, maps out a distinct and different grieving trend.
References
Alvariza, A., Häger-Tibell, L., Holm, M., Steineck, G., & Kreicbergs, U. (2020). Increasing preparedness for caregiving and death in family caregivers of patients with severe illness who are cared for at-home–study protocol for a web-based intervention. BMC palliative care, 19(1), 1-8.
Glazer, H. R., Clark, M. D., Thomas, R., & Haxton, H. (2010). Parenting after the death of a spouse. American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine®, 27(8), 532-536.
Jones, E., Oka, M., Clark, J., Gardner, H., Hunt, R., & Dutson, S. (2019). Lived experience of young widowed individuals: A qualitative study. Death Studies, 43(3), 183-192.
Kronaizl, S. G. (2019). Discussing death with children: A developmental approach. Pediatric Nursing, 45(1), 47-50.
Kubler-Ross, E. (1969). On Death and Dying. New York: The MacMillan Company.
Madsen, R., Birkelund, R., & Uhrenfeldt, L. (2019). Transition experiences during courses of incurable cancer from the perspective of bereaved spouses. European Journal of Oncology Nursing, 38, 28-35.
Turner, M., King, C., Milligan, C., Thomas, C., Brearley, S. G., Seamark, D., & Payne, S. (2016). Caring for a dying spouse at the end of life:‘It's one of the things you volunteer for when you get married': a qualitative study of the oldest carers' experiences. Age and ageing, 45(3), 421-426.