Helping Your Loved One Find
Forgiveness and Peace
If your care-receiver is facing death, he or she may feel the
need to make peace with a friend, with a relative, or with God.
Just as you help your loved one eat right and get to doctors’
appointments, you may also be called on to help him or her prepare
spiritually for death. The task may seem overwhelming to both you
and your care-receiver. Neither of you may feel equipped for this.
But helping that person find peace can make such a difference for
him or her—the dying loved one—and for you, the one who will be left
behind.
These are suggestions for helping your care-receiver heal old
wounds by admitting mistakes, offering apologies, and accepting
forgiveness:
--Offer to pray. Your loved one may need a little help
getting started. Try a traditional prayer of the church, such as the
Act of Contrition. Or allow the Holy Spirit to guide you in an
informal prayer. Silence and contemplation may allow her to more
intimately speak and listen to an all-forgiving God.
--Listen. Your care-receiver may need the opportunity to
talk about serious matters that weigh heavily on the mind and burden
the soul. It’s not uncommon for a person facing death to review his
or her life. Some things may need to be said out loud. Saying
something out loud often puts it in a different, clearer light. It’s
easier to see how a mistake could have been made, how a falling out
could have happened, how no one was entirely to blame or entirely
without blame. Talking about such matters openly can make it easier
to come to the realization that it’s time to forgive others and
oneself.
--Facilitate reconciliation. Your loved one may need to
get in touch with someone. Maybe the other party wants to make
peace, too. Let your care-receiver know that you can help arrange a
conversation between them. If the person with whom your loved one
wants to reconcile won’t talk or has died, suggest that your
care-receiver write a letter to that person, saying all the things
he or she would say if they could sit down face-to-face. This letter
will never be mailed, but writing it can be a way to say, “Please
forgive me; I forgive you.”
--Do what’s necessary. Sometimes a person feels that
talking or writing just isn’t enough. He or she has to do something
more. Maybe it’s going to his or her parents’ or spouse’s grave and
praying, crying, yelling, and apologizing there. Maybe it’s
compiling a list of regrets and then burning it. Your loved one may
need to cry a lot and may need to turn more to prayer. Do what’s
necessary to help him or her ask for and accept forgiveness.
--Get some help. If there are issues that you can’t help
with, your loved one might benefit from talking with a counselor.
Hospice social workers have the skills to help a person sort through
a life review.
--Use the sacraments. Encourage and arrange for your
care-receiver to take advantage of the sacraments of reconciliation
and the anointing of the sick. No matter how long your parent may
have been away from the Church, no matter what he or she may have
done, an all-loving God is waiting with open arms to offer
forgiveness and peace now, and to share his eternal joy at the time
of death.
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