Navigating Caregiving & Grief Part 1: Preparing for Care, Preparing for Grief

Caregiving for an aging loved one is rarely just a logistical or financial challenge. It touches relationships, identity, family dynamics, and grief, which often begins long before any loss actually happens. Most of us are never given the vocabulary or the tools to even start these challenging conversations.

We’re bringing together three people who understand this terrain from very different angles: an aging life care expert, a thanatologist, and a Brighton Jones advisor who has lived through it herself.

In this session, our presenters, Mary, Michelle, and Lisa, share guidance on how to approach these important conversations with loved ones and highlighted key considerations when planning for future care.

What we’ll explore together:

• What to plan for, and when: The financial and care decisions worth putting in place early and how planning ahead creates more choices later.
• Why these conversations feel so difficult: The often-invisible role grief plays in why families put off planning, and how naming it out loud is often what finally makes room to move forward.
• What “prepared” really means: What documents and plans can cover, and why the real work of being prepared often has less to do with paperwork and more to do with how a family shows up for each other.