Picture the Scene:
- carolinehjones
- Aug 11
- 3 min read
Mum’s called everyone round to break the news, and it’s not good. Cancer. And it’s terminal. There’s so much emotion in the room, fear, anger, disbelief. The family cry together, hug each other maybe. Or perhaps some of them can’t do that. They’ve never been a touchy feely type family, and, even though they might want to, this doesn’t feel like a safe time to start. Nobody really knows what to say, how to feel, or what to do. There’s nothing they can do in that moment.
Once the shock has landed though, the usual patterns set in. The oldest sister takes charge, starts making some lists, talking about treatment plans, wants to speak to the doctors herself—they might be wrong. There’s some diet she’s heard about that Mum might want to try. She can’t remember the details but she’ll speak to her mate who mentioned it. They’ll find a way through this. She’ll come with Mum on the next appointment and find out what’s what. This can’t be true.
The younger sibling gets annoyed at this. Why will she go? Why not them? Accusations start to fly. They’ve never been reliable. Well, you’ve always been too bossy. Stop taking over. Stop doing nothing.
Dad’s not saying a word. He can’t right now. It’s all too much. He really just wants to put the telly on and lose himself in something mindless, but he has a feeling that wouldn’t go down well at the moment, so he says nothing, and does nothing, thinking that way, he can’t get it wrong, but everyone seems annoyed with him anyway.
Mum’s saying nothing either. She’s the one who calms it all down, usually, but she can’t today. She wants to make it all better, but she can’t do that. She’s broken at being the cause of this distress. This is the last thing she wants. She’s not even started to think about what she does want though. She’s hearing her daughter make plans, but does she want that? Should she just go along with the suggestions to keep her happy? But it sounds like her youngest won’t like that.
Nobody wants to make anything worse for anyone, but families have a habit of slipping back into old patterns, no matter how old they all are now, and bad times have a habit of bringing the old patterns back into play too.
At this point, most families muddle through. There are usually things people want to say, but feel they can’t. Maybe Mum wants to say no to her daughter’s planning. Maybe she’d prefer to go to her appointments by herself, or with a friend, but she doesn’t know how to tell her daughter that without hurting her feelings, which is the last thing she wants to do on top of all this.
Maybe her daughter feels compelled to go into planning mode, because that’s what she’d always done too, but is it best for her, let alone her mum? And maybe Dad needs someone to tell him it’s okay that he wants to escape it all. It’s quite normal to feel like that, but that there are ways to do that without shutting everyone out.
Sometimes, what a family needs is someone from the outside to come in and take an overview of it all, to talk to them all separately and together and help them to see each other’s viewpoints, then find a way to make sure that everyone can be heard and that everyone gets their needs taken into account. Together, they can then find a way to cope that works for them all. Nobody can make the situation okay, but it is possible to make it a little bit easier for everyone concerned. Enter The Death Coach….
If this sounds like you right now, get in touch for a chat to see how I can help. I can’t take the pain of death away, but I can support you to find ways to make the other stuff easier.
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