First, we're sorry.

Most of this site is shaped for active care planning, which is the wrong shape right now. The few things below are the ones caregivers tell us they wish someone had told them in the first weeks. None of them are urgent. Take what helps. Skip what doesn't.

You are not the only one walking this road

EvergreenHealth Hospice grief support, King County

statewide · in person

Bereavement program from EvergreenHealth Hospice. Monthly workshop, 6-week mindfulness series, and 6-week creative grief group. Open to anyone within 13 months of a loss, you don't need to have used the agency.

What to expect

Drop-in style for the workshop. Cohort format for the 6-week series. People share when ready. Facilitator is often a hospice chaplain or social worker.

Call 1-425-899-1077 Open program page →

“I lost my wife to this dreaded disease, and I cannot stop the tears.”

From bereaved spouse, dementia, AlzConnected.

If they were on hospice, the bereavement benefit lasts 13 months

Medicare hospice covers bereavement services for the surviving family for 13 months after the death. Most families never use it. The hospice agency calls once around month 1 and once around month 13, and that's it unless you ask for more. Call them this week and ask what their bereavement program actually offers, support groups, individual counseling, retreats, library. It's already paid for, you used it when you signed the consent.

Complicated grief is a clinical thing, not a personal failure

About 1 in 10 bereaved spouses and 1 in 7 bereaved adult children develop prolonged-grief disorder, which is a recognized DSM-5 condition with specific therapies. If after 6 to 12 months the grief is functionally the same as week 2, you're not failing. Search for complicated grief therapy or prolonged grief therapy. Center for Complicated Grief at Columbia keeps a directory of trained clinicians at complicatedgrief.columbia.edu. Many take insurance.

Caregiver-bereavement is different from spouse-bereavement

An adult child who solo-caregived a parent through cancer or dementia is grieving the parent AND the years they spent caregiving. Generic bereavement groups often don't fit. Look for caregiver bereavement or post-caregivergroups specifically. Alzheimer's Association runs them in person and online at alz.org. Hospice agencies sometimes run them too.

If you're second-guessing the morphine doses at the end, ask a hospice nurse

Hospice nurses, not therapists, are the right voice for this. The high-dose comfort care at the end is standard practice, not a hastening of death. The Alzheimer's Association 24/7 helpline at 1-800-272-3900 has master's-level care consultants who fielded these calls all week. They can answer specific dose questions and pattern-match against the protocols.

The practical aftermath, in no rush

Most paperwork can wait 60 to 90 days. Don't cancel anything in the first week unless it's costing money. Specifically.

Death certificate copies. Order 8 to 10. Banks, insurance, Social Security, the title company all want originals. The funeral home can order them, or any county registrar.
Social Security. Funeral home usually reports the death. Confirm. Survivor benefits process takes 30 to 60 days. The one-time $255 death benefit goes to the surviving spouse if there is one.
Veterans benefits. If they were a veteran, the VA pays a burial allowance and a flag. The county Veterans Service Officer at dva.wa.gov files the paperwork free.
Estate / probate. Most WA estates under $100,000 don't need probate, just a small-estate affidavit. Talk to an elder-law or probate attorney. Don't close accounts until you know which go through probate.
Notify three credit bureaus to flag the account as deceased, preventing identity theft. Free.

If you were in the room when they died, you may need to talk about that separately

The home-death experience is its own thing, and processing it can take months. The 13-month hospice bereavement benefit covers it, your therapist should be told about it specifically. The pattern in the corpus is caregivers who try to hold the dying memory and the long-arc grief in the same conversation, and run aground on both. Naming the home-death experience as its own thing helps.

When you're ready

If at some point you want to think about your own future, the same paperwork that mattered for the person you lost (durable power of attorney, healthcare directive, POLST, advance care planning) probably matters for you too. The self-planning track walks through what to set up while you have capacity to decide. No rush.

What did you think of these results?

These pointers are paraphrased from caregivers who have been through the first months on r/hospice, r/AgingParents, ALZConnected, and AARP. They are not legal or medical advice.