Caring for a loved one is a tremendous task that requires great sacrifices.

Compassion The language of Compassion Is the language of the heart! When the heart speaks, A thousand flowers bloom And love flows Like the morning sun Streaming through the window. No words are needed. A look, a touch, Will suffice to say What a thousand words could not. And Compassion glow Like the radiant star In the night sky. - Ancient Wisdom

Our first thought may be one of despair and helplessness. Yet it is important for us, from the very beginning, to see this task from a more positive perspective.

Caring for a loved one at home presents us with a great opportunity to develop our spiritual practice. This is because in order to care for a loved one well, we have to practice all the virtues and noble qualities of a human being - love, compassion, patience and selflessness.

In all cultures and religions, death is regarded as sacred. The process of dying compelled us to confront death and our spirituality. It forces us to deal with our fear and see our true self. In the process of dying, we truly understand our priorities in life and the importance we need to place on our relationships with others, particularly those nearest to us.

Through caring for our loved ones, we realize that the things that are truly important in life are not material things. Rather, what is truly important is our relationship with our loved ones and the people around us. It presents us with an opportunity to re-evaluate our priorities and review our lives. If there are some unresolved conflicts in our relationship with our loved one, now is the time to come to term with those conflicts. It shows us that problems and conflicts we have not resolved in the past do not really go away when we ignored them. They will ripen, if not now, then in the future, and we will eventually have to deal with them.

All our angers, our frustrations and our squabbles in the past become meaningless and petty. We begin to see the role of our ego that has prevented healing from taking place. We see the wasted opportunity for healing that could have resulted in a happier and healthier relationship for both.

However, it is still not too late to heal the relationship. Caring for our loved one provides us with another chance to make it right. It is not about protecting our selves or our egos, nor others. It is about facing truth, accepting it and coming to term with it.

It is about forgiving and allowing healing to take place. Ultimately, it is about unconditional love and compassion.

When all is said and done, our loved one would have left us a great gift - the gift of a second chance. If, through his death, we are able to slow down and ponder over our own mortality, and inspire ourselves to prepare for our own inevitable death spiritually, mentally and emotionally, then this gift would have been the greatest gift of all.

 
Read Also:
Thoughts on Caring for a Terminally Ill Loved One
A Buddhist's Perspective on Dying