Oct 1, 2026 · 22 min · 10 segments
On this episode of Aging Forward, Dr. Chen talks about what she's learned from grief after the loss of a loved one. Sign up to receive Mayo…
My family has always lived together in a multigenerational home, so Mom was woven into the rhythm of our everyday lives.
She was diagnosed with an advanced bone marrow disease called myelofibrosis, where her bone marrow just stopped making blood.
And then earlier this year, she developed a second cancer that spread very rapidly.
On top of that, her memory declined quickly, not from Alzheimer's disease, but because everything that her body was enduring, including all the repeated hospitalizations, the delirium, her medication interactions.
She was severely anemic, and the tremendous stress of chronic illness took a toll on her brain.
As both her daughter and a physician, I understood what was happening medically, but understanding something medically doesn't make it easier emotionally.
Over the months that followed, our lives became filled with doctor's appointments, hospital stays, blood draws, blood transfusions, scans, consultations, and a lot of difficult conversations.
We found ourselves living from one appointment to the next, hoping for good news while preparing ourselves for the possibility of what might come.
Watching someone you love slowly decline is a very different kind of heartbreak.
Every time she lost another piece of her independence and when she could no longer do something she loved.
And the grief deepened with every hospital stay and the conversations that became shorter, and whenever I caught myself thinking, "This may be the last time she experiences this." As a family, we experienced what many caregivers experience, a series of small goodbyes before the final goodbye ever arrives.
You continue showing up with hope while your heart is quietly grieving at the same time.
Eventually, despite all the planning, despite all the conversations, despite knowing that time was becoming short, that day came.
People sometimes ask me whether knowing someone is dying somehow prepares you for the moment they pass, and I don't think it does.
My family has always lived together in a multigenerational home, so Mom was woven into the rhythm of our everyday lives.
She was diagnosed with an advanced bone marrow disease called myelofibrosis, where her bone marrow just stopped making blood.
And then earlier this year, she developed a second cancer that spread very rapidly.
On top of that, her memory declined quickly, not from Alzheimer's disease, but because everything that her body was enduring, including all the repeated hospitalizations, the delirium, her medication interactions.
She was severely anemic, and the tremendous stress of chronic illness took a toll on her brain.
As both her daughter and a physician, I understood what was happening medically, but understanding something medically doesn't make it easier emotionally.
Over the months that followed, our lives became filled with doctor's appointments, hospital stays, blood draws, blood transfusions, scans, consultations, and a lot of difficult conversations.
We found ourselves living from one appointment to the next, hoping for good news while preparing ourselves for the possibility of what might come.
Watching someone you love slowly decline is a very different kind of heartbreak.
Every time she lost another piece of her independence and when she could no longer do something she loved.
And the grief deepened with every hospital stay and the conversations that became shorter, and whenever I caught myself thinking, "This may be the last time she experiences this." As a family, we experienced what many caregivers experience, a series of small goodbyes before the final goodbye ever arrives.
You continue showing up with hope while your heart is quietly grieving at the same time.
Eventually, despite all the planning, despite all the conversations, despite knowing that time was becoming short, that day came.
People sometimes ask me whether knowing someone is dying somehow prepares you for the moment they pass, and I don't think it does.
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