Opinion: The power of showing up for an ailing loved one
For many families, visiting a loved one who is aging or seriously ill can feel surprisingly hard. We may love them deeply, yet hesitate before walking into a hospital room, nursing home or hospice. The reasons are complex, but at the heart of it is often an overwhelming feeling of helplessness.
When someone we care about is unwell, our instinct is to fix what is wrong. If we cannot make them better, we may feel that what we have to offer is inadequate — or that our presence only highlights our powerlessness. Yet families matter enormously in the lives of people who are ill.
What if the problem is not that families have too little to offer, but that we misunderstand what truly helps?
A growing body of work in palliative care points to an
approach called Intensive Caring
, which reframes visiting and caregiving not as a way of fixing, but as a way of being with. Though originally developed for health care professionals, its lessons are especially relevant for families.
At its core, Intensive Caring is grounded in a simple but profound idea expressed by Dame Cicely Saunders, founder of the modern hospice movement: “You matter because you are you, and you matter to the last moment of your life.”
For families who feel that “it just doesn’t feel like enough,” this approach offers reassurance — and practical guidance — about how presence itself can ease suffering.
Families often find themselves cast as bystanders in the face of illness. Doctors prescribe treatments, nurses monitor symptoms and institutions manage care. Compared with medical interventions, what family can offer feels small.
An old family friend once summed it up while his wife was in hospice. “All I do is hold her hand and try to feed her a little,” he said. “We often fall asleep in front of the TV. It just doesn’t feel like enough.”
His words echo what countless families feel. Yet research and lived experience suggest the opposite: these moments are not only enough, they are essential.
The first and most fundamental element of Intensive Caring is simply showing up.
Presence alone can make the difference between hope and despair, between feeling cared for and feeling abandoned. Saunders famously said that “suffering is only intolerable when nobody cares.”
When families show up — consistently and willingly — they demonstrate that their loved one still matters.
This kind of non-abandonment is life-sustaining.
Human connection is one of the strongest protections against despair and isolation. For someone whose world has shrunk because of illness, knowing that a familiar face will return again and again can be profoundly comforting.
The power of showing up is not about what you do during a visit, but the fact that you are there.
Families often worry about not knowing what to say. But tone matters more than words.
Holding a hand, making eye contact, sitting quietly together — these gestures convey respect, care and love. Even silence, when infused with genuine presence, can be deeply affirming.
This is called dignity-affirming presence. It is less about actions and more about demeanour.
Being distracted, rushed or visibly uncomfortable can unintentionally signal that you would rather be elsewhere. By contrast, being attentive, calm and emotionally available affirms the other person’s worth.
Illness can easily reduce a person to a diagnosis or a list of limitations. Families are uniquely positioned to counter this by taking an interest in who their loved one is beyond their illness.
This does not require focusing on health unless the person wants to. It can mean talking about books or television shows, family news, hobbies, faith, memories or current events. It can include playing cards, listening to music, watching a favourite program together or reading aloud.
Reminiscence is especially powerful. Inviting stories from the past affirms that a person’s life experiences still matter and are worth hearing.
Families share a history that predates illness, and by drawing on that shared past, they help loved ones reconnect with a sense of identity that illness cannot erase.
Families also play a vital advocacy role. By reminding health care providers who the patient is as a person — their values, preferences and life story — families help ensure that care remains person-centred and respectful of dignity.
Visits can feel futile when families believe there is nothing left to be done. Intensive Caring challenges this assumption by encouraging families to consider what is possible, even when a cure is not.
Near the end of life, hope often shifts away from recovery and toward meaning, comfort and peace. Families play a central role in holding this kind of hope.
Perhaps the most challenging shift for families is letting go of the need to fix. In everyday life, problems are often solvable. Illness, especially in later life, does not always follow that pattern.
When families cling to curing or eliminating suffering that is beyond reach, they may feel like failures when that goal proves impossible.
Letting go of the need to fix allows us to accept uncertainty, tolerate ambiguity and trust that comfort matters even when a cure is not possible. It means recognizing that while suffering cannot always be removed, it can be eased through presence, affirmation and love.
For families, this shift can be liberating. It reframes caregiving not as a series of failed repairs, but as an act of accompaniment — walking alongside someone through one of life’s most vulnerable chapters.
By emphasizing presence over fixing, dignity over distraction, and meaning over outcomes, it helps families:
- Recognize the profound impact of continued presence.
- Reduce their own suffering by reconnecting with their role as comforters and companions.
- Support their own emotional health by easing feelings of helplessness.
- Improve outcomes for loved ones through advocacy and connection.
- Strengthen the overall health care system by providing care that cannot be replaced.
If you can and want to visit someone who is aging or ill, remember this: Showing up matters. Being present matters. Taking an interest matters.
Letting go of fixing matters.
In the quiet economy of human connection, these acts are not small at all. They are enough.
Dr. Harvey Max Chochinov is a distinguished professor of psychiatry at the University of Manitoba and a senior scientist at CancerCare Manitoba Research Institute. His newly released book, In Search of Dignity: A Lifetime of Reflections, is available from Oxford University Press.