My wonderful parents were married for sixty years. At the age of eighty-five, Dad had Parkinson's, severe spinal arthritis and stenosis, and had suffered several small strokes. My brother and I both had full time jobs, so we were limited in the time we had to spend with our aged parents. I did, however, stop by every day after work to visit. My brother came by several times a week, as well.

One night, just before Thanksgiving, in the wee hours of the morning, we got that phone call everyone dreads. I knew it would be bad news when the phone rang. My father had shot himself. He had been worried about how his condition was wearing out the family emotionally, especially my mom. Also, I think he just couldn't deal with the constant pain and by being helpless. The shot was not immediately fatal. He lived for three weeks in ICU on a respirator, but of course, we knew his death was imminent. But at least we had a little time to prepare ourselves for the inevitable.

My brother and his wife took turns with my husband and me staying with Mom. We didn't want her to be alone when she got the news. On that fateful night, it was my turn to spend the night with Mom. I knew when my brother and his wife appeared unexpectedly at the back door that they were the bearers of the ill tidings. They found out first because my sister-in-law was in charge of ICU at our local hospital.

I'm so glad I was there for Mom. My father was her whole life - sixty years together as man and wife. That in itself is practically a lifetime. How was she to cope now, facing existence on her own, with her other half suddenly removed from her daily routine? And how could we, as her family, help?

Mom is a devout Christian, and this was an integral part of her survival. She fully believed she would be reunited with Dad and that he was in a far better place, finally free of his pain-wracked aged body and of all his worldy cares. The biggest problem would be the void she experienced with the loss of her life partner. Our responsibility was to help fill that gaping maw. Not that we could ever replace Dad, of course, but we could help occupy her time, showing her that her life was still important.

One way we did this was to make her feel useful. She had spent her life caring for others, both in her profession as a registered nurse and in her role as a wife, a mom, a grandmother, a great-grandmother, and a friend. The role of wife and nurse had ended, but the other roles were to become integral

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