How do I cope with grief when the people I care for die?

You do something most people could not bear. You let yourself become family to the people you care for, and then you lose them, again and again, and you carry each loss while no one is there to carry you. That is a specific kind of heavy, love and grief with no one to hand it to. It is real, and you are not weak for feeling crushed by it. Hear this clearly. The grief is the proof that you did the work right. You could have kept a safe distance and felt nothing. Instead you loved people who were dying, and love like that always leaves a wound when it ends. The pain is not a sign you are failing. It is the cost of giving them something real at the end. But you cannot keep absorbing loss with no outlet, or it will hollow you out. So find one place to set it down, a grief that names each person, a trusted friend, a support group of others who do this work. Speaking a loss out loud is how it stops living only inside you. You carry so many people. Let someone, finally, help carry you.