My wife’s grandfather’s health has been declining for several years now, but it seems like he may have recently entered the terminal stage. There are many things I probably should tell you to complete the backstory, but I’m going to keep the things short. My wife lost her great-grandmother a little over three years ago. She lost both of her parents before graduating from college. Suffice it to say, she’s felt considerable loss and delt with very real feelings of abandonment for a good portion of her life. Her family also has the tendency to hide the decline of these people until the last possible minute which only increases her belief that she could do or should have done something more.

I don’t know what to do, but I tell her it will be okay… that it’s not her fault… and she’s not in control of the situation. The words feel trite, so I try to give her a hug and just listen.

I don’t really know loss. While my grandfather died about a year ago, I don’t really think of that as loss as he was no longer in pain. I loved my grandfather and valued the time we had. He enjoyed playing with my son less than a week before he died. He always had great stories, and while it seem like a loss that they won’t be told, I know they will be shared for years to come because he shared them.

At the end of the day, this story is not really about me… ##How do you think about and deal with loss? ##How do any of us do that?