Living With the Elderly and Bereaved

By Jan Gamm

The elderly can be a joy and a special bonus in life. They can also cause a great deal of trouble, sometimes deliberately and for a variety of reasons. The bereaved elderly can be particularly difficult. Once the first stage of grieving is over, it can be difficult for the one left behind to find their feet, especially if they have been in a close and happy marriage for many years.

Imagine what it must be like to wake up with the same person in the bed beside you for forty, fifty or even sixty years. Nowadays the chances of marriage surviving for that long are minuscule. Imagine, then, that this person is suddenly not there. Breakfast, which used to be a ritual, is now unnecessary. Lunch, which was always predeced by a walk, is no longer in the schedule because you don’t want to walk alone. Dinner is from a frozen packet because it seems silly to cook for one.

Life as you know it has disappeared and in it’s place is a fruitless treadmill of daily chores to get through before facing another solitary night of insomnia. Such a routine would be difficult for young and able bodied people, but for the elderly it is almost unbearable.

Many pull themselves together and take themselves off to the nearest social centre to register and get a social life. For others it is not so simple. Some people, especially those who have depended for fifty years or so on ‘the other half’ to support their social life, find it hard to mix socially, regardless of wether other people involved are also bereaved. The label means nothing; the elderly do not feel old a great deal of the time and do not feel ‘bereaved’ in the conventional sense. They merely feel isolated, alone and frightened of the future.

In some cases, these feelings can lead to sufferers causing all kinds of problems within their families in the form of mischief, attention seeking behaviour and generally being obnoxious to those around them. Spot these characteristics of grief for what they are and try to help rather than aggravate the problem by avoiding the sufferer.

Help groups are wonderful once help has been sought but not so good at seeking out those who need help obviously. Elderly and bereaved people need to be approached gently but firmly and led toward associations which might be able to help.

Jan Gamm writes reflections on life with an emphasis on world travel. She has lived in many countries and traveled extensively in the Far East, the Middle East, America, South America and throughout the South Pacific. She writes for fun and for money whenever she can manage it.

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