This is a membership Morsel from “Too Young to Retire”. Today, we are continuing to

talk about what gifts you can give a friend or family member that pays dividends off into the future. At this moment when we think of gifts as a physical thing giving time can be much more important.
We are at that age where one person or more persons you know may have come down with an incurable disease. A spouse or other family member ends up spending all their time caring for that person. They may even have to quit their job because their partner needs so much help. They lose contact with others and friends avoid them because they don’t know what to say to them.
Find out what interests and hobbies the healthy friend has and offer to come, watch, sit, attend or visit, and take care of the sick partner when this activity happens. Then demand that the healthy partner go to the meeting or participate in the hobby or sport. Do this on a regular basis like once a month.
Why would you do this? It’s because when the ill person dies, you want the healthy person to still have contacts and ties to other people in the community. If they don’t maintain these outside interests they will be utterly lost when their spouse dies.

The friends I know that have stayed connected with other activities that didn’t involve their spouse, dealt with the death of their spouse so much better than those that didn’t. While they still grieved, they had other interests in their life to look forward to and activities to participate in.
One lady I know belonged to several social clubs and found that there were groups of people who had also lost a spouse in these groups. She was accepted into the sub-groups even while her husband was struggling with brain cancer with a terminal diagnosis. When he did pass, she was able to quickly move on while grieving with support from the other people who had experienced a spousal death.
You may not know anybody now, but keep this gift of time in mind if someone, at a later date is experiencing an event like this. By being part of the 2 Young 2 Retire you will part of a community caring community. Sign up for our classes, join in the discussion and become part of our community about life after working at www.patterson2y2r.com
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