Stage Four, section 8: Reconnecting

At some point, you may sense that even though you still miss and grieve for the person who is deceased, you are ready to reconnect with the world outside. Here are some suggestions for making the most of the period following caregiving and bereavement:

• Offer support to other caregivers. Stay in your support group for as long as you are comfortable, both for yourself and for what you can offer to caregivers who are at earlier stages of caregiving. If you want to use skills and understanding gained while caregiving, become a volunteer caregiver. (Before volunteering, give yourself time to grieve and to focus on yourself and your immediate family.) You might like the caregiving ministry started by your place of worship, or you might prefer a community organization such as Faith in Action of Upper Pinellas, Hospice, Gulfcoast Community Care, or the local Alzheimer?s Association. For contact information call the Senior Helpline (727-217-8111 or 1-800=861-8111 in Pasco).

• Reconnect with friends and place of worship. Now you have time to take classes at your place of worship or to sing in the choir, or you can just enjoy services without making additional commitments.

• Take classes at your local college, senior center, or recreation center. A list of "Senior Centers" is included in More Resources and Tips. If you are a Florida resident age sixty or over, you may take certain undergraduate or graduate college classes on a non-credit, space available basis without exams, grades, or tuition fees.

• To find local colleges call 211 or check your phone book. Many also have web sites. For example, St. Petersburg College's web site can be found at www.spjc.edu. This site includes information about regular and online courses and a career development center.

• If you are a surviving spouse, try to give yourself a year or more before making major decisions regarding the house, investments, etc. If you do decide to sell your home and liquidate many possessions, consider having the antiques appraised to help you price them, or sell them through an auction house. Another choice is to hire a professional estate seller. This can be advantageous even though you have to pay a percentage of what is earned on the sale. A good professional estate seller has an established clientele who go from sale to sale. Also, if the sale is at a home that is for sale, networking with real estate professionals may occur. Check out your estate seller. Get references and a written contract that lists services provided.

• Before hiring professionals such as an estate seller, home improvement company, and realtor to help with this process, read "Resolving Consumer Problems" in the More Resources and Tips section. You will have fewer consumer problems to resolve if you check out the companies in advance. This article provides telephone numbers and web sites for resources such as the Pinellas County Department of Consumer Protection, the Better Business Bureau, and the Florida Department of Agriculture's Consumer Division.

• Try to release the caregiver role, at least for a few years. If you are an adult child who was caring for an aging parent, give your spouse and children more of your time now. Plan things you can do together for family fun. Sometimes when one of two elderly parents dies, the adult child who did much of the caregiving has a tendency to over-care for the surviving spouse. After that spouse recovers from grief, he or she may be capable of independence at a greater level than before the death of the spouse. Your parent needs your love and support, but too much dependence on you because you are used to being a caregiver should not be encouraged.

• Consider your current work situation and whether it is right for you. This may mean returning to school for more training, returning to work full-time, continuing part-time work, or remaining out of work long enough to take a trip or fulfill some other dream that might have to be put on hold once you return to work full-time. If you continued full-time work throughout your years of caregiving, you may want to talk with your family members about planning something special together - perhaps a vacation. Some caregivers have been influenced by the caregiving experience to train for a career they had not imagined for themselves before - nursing, for example.

• Continue any positive activities that helped you care for yourself while you were a caregiver. These might include exercise, yoga, massages, meditation, prayer, eating right, art, writing in a journal, volunteering, gardening, using the Internet, and using the library system. If you were not able to do these activities as a caregiver, you may enjoy them now. You deserve to take care of yourself.

• Enjoy the activities you may not have been able to do while caregiving. Visit your out-of-state relatives, go to religious or civic club conventions, attend concerts on the beach, go boating, ride your bike, play golf, play bridge, dance, go on picnics, pursue a hobby.

• Get involved in advocacy, awareness, and training efforts by organizations trying to improve the lives of caregivers or of people with the disease that led to your loved one's death.

• National advocacy groups are always looking for interested members. One example is www.lastacts.org. Last Acts is a coalition of people dedicated to improving end-of-life care. "Toll-free Information Lines" in the More Resources and Tips section lists organizations dedicated to helping families affected by various diseases, and many of their web sites are listed in the Caregiver Web Sites section and online at www.agingcarefl.org/caregiver/Websites.

• Give yourself credit for the wonderful job you did as caregiver and for making sure that your care receiver's last days were filled with as much dignity and meaning as possible. You did your best and you deserve love and praise.

• Review your life so far with its high and low points, accomplishments and disappointments, joys and sorrows. Looking back, you may see that some things that seemed the most difficult, perhaps the low points at the time, may have changed the course of your life for the better. Look at your caregiving experience and see that through your devotion and the things you had to learn and do, you are more confident and more compassionate now.

• Make plans for your future. Are there dreams you have had your whole life that have never been fulfilled? Do you have new dreams and goals that surfaced during your caregiving years? It is not too late to start. You can begin by gathering information about what is needed to accomplish your dream. Once you set a goal, take steps to achieve it.