‘It’s a forever change’: supporting aging parents through loss of a child

(Aging Untold) — Losing a child is something no parent expects to face, no matter their ageThe Aging Untold experts are talking candidly about why this grief is so often overlooked in older adults and how families and caregivers can help. An “unnatural” loss, no matter your age Sam Cradduck, a gerontologist, pointed out a troubling pattern she’s seen in her work with older adults.“One of the saddest things I see is when we have our aged community and they lose their child, and it’s not treated the same,” Cradduck said. “If you’re my age and you lose a child, everybody rallies around and they’re there for you. But when an aged person loses their child, it’s like, ‘Well, you’re old. What do you expect?’ ... I think that is such an unfairness that we have allowed ourselves to do.” A story from the nursing home Amy O’Rourke, an aging expert, shared a personal memory from her time as a nursing home administrator that illustrates how older adults’ grief could go unacknowledged. “I greeted a