This weekly Caregiving Tip is for you, to help you express your love for another human being.

We are all caregivers.

If you are a client, a caregiver, a caregiving spouse or family member, a medical provider, or anyone in the business of caring, we are your source for useful caregiving tips that bring connection to your caring work.

What:

A son sat by his mother’s bed in her last week.

The room was quiet. She was awake, but barely. He did not know what to say. He had been a busy man his whole life. Words had come easy in the boardroom. Here, in this room, he had nothing.

A hospice nurse came in. She saw his face. She sat down for a moment and said softly:

“There are four sentences. That is all. You can say them in any order. You can say them more than once.”

She wrote them on a small piece of paper. He held the paper in his hand for the rest of the week.

He said the four sentences to his mother every day.

On the last day, she squeezed his hand. She had not spoken in two days. She whispered them back.

So What:

The doctor and writer Ira Byock has spent his life with people who are dying.

He says the most important conversations at the end almost always come down to four sentences.

“Please forgive me.”

“I forgive you.”

“Thank you.”

“I love you.”

That is all.

These sentences are not just for the end. They are good sentences for a Tuesday afternoon. They are good sentences for a phone call. They are good sentences for the porch.

But at the end, they are essential. They close circles that have been open for years. They give the person you love permission to go in peace.

At the end, the most honest words are also the simplest.

Now What:  Try this…

You do not have to wait for the end to use the four sentences.

This week, say one of them — out loud, to someone you love — when there is no crisis at all.

“Thank you for raising me.”

“I forgive you for what happened in 1998.”

“Please forgive me for not calling more.”

“I love you. I should have said it more often.”

Practice them when nothing is on the line. They will be ready when everything is.

These Eight Weeks, In One Sentence:

Across this series, we have said the same thing in different shapes.

• Love is the courage to start the talk before the fall.
• Attention is what lets us tell the truth without crushing hope, and meet a person with dementia in the world that is real to them.
• Generosity is asking for help, and letting the people who love us be needed.
• Philotimo — love of honor — is having the conversation with the keys, and the porch, and the small piece of paper with four sentences on it, because it is the right thing to do.

These are not separate practices. They are one practice.

And the practice is this:  Be brave enough to say what love is asking you to say.

FOR MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS:  Ira Byock’s book The Four Things That Matter Most is widely used in palliative care training. The Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) and the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine offer free communication tools for clinicians at the bedside. For Illinois families, the National POLST Paradigm and Aging With Dignity’s Five Wishes pair well with Byock’s framework — paperwork that protects the patient, conversations that honor them.

Weekly Moment of Beauty:

A grandmother once told her granddaughter the secret of a long marriage.

She said: “We said the four sentences to each other almost every day. We started when we were young. By the end, they were the easiest words we knew.”

It is never too early to start.

It is never too late, either.

The blessing of caring for another person is this — we get to practice these sentences while there is still time.

Thank you for walking this series with me.

 

With deep gratitude,

Thomaie Hilaris

Assisting Hands Home Care

P.S. — Every care plan starts with a conversation. Reach out this week and let’s talk about what peace of mind could look like for your family.