There is a pet term for the grieving and loss we feel as our loved ones dwindle and decline.
As they lose themselves to confusion and disorientation, they are lost to us. Sometimes, the diminished cognition, reductive common sense, and other unraveling occur over many years. Each new feature of this unwinding is another loss to us.
Pauline Boss coined a term for this by describing our emotions as our loved one slowly drifts away as ambiguous loss and anticipatory grief.
Yes, we are grieving while they are still present and alive. We are experiencing their absence while they are still with us.
Those facts make for both ambiguous and anticipatory states. But there is nothing ambiguous about caregiver losses. Our grief and our loss are very present and very clear. Anticipation and ambiguity won’t spare us the sorrow at their passing.
We will suffer grief and loss again, of course, when our beloved dies.
this is our life 