Mom is 91 and in a SNF for 3 years. She dreams of going home and living the active, creative and beautiful life she had. But a stroke robbed her of this option and she is bed-bound now. She is frail but not dying. There is no hope of further physical improvement. She believes otherwise. She conquered many difficulties in life through sheer force of will but that will not work this time. She tells me of her future plans and I just say “uh-huh” and grey rock. But really, what do you say when there is no hope of improvement and a long, unhappy life is the most likely future? Mom is not a person of faith and finds no comfort in such conversations.
You can fix this for her. You can't change this for her, and you can't change her own dreaming and thinking about it. You are simply there to listen and to comfort. You aren't responsible. There is no fix here, and nothing for you to "do". Simply listen and empathize with her pain, and her wish to escape it with dreams.
I wouldn't totally dismiss faith. As her life becomes more and more devoid of worldly pleasures and things, that void will be an open invitation for something. Many people replace those things with very negative things because they have little to nothing positive to have faith in.
With my mother I just did chitchat. Superficial stuff about what's going on with the grandkids, the weather, the news, had lots of pictures to show her. I didn't talk about grim issues unless my mother brought it up. And I would engage in an honest conversation about her situation. That didn't happen too often.
We all know acceptance of decline and death is the elephant in the room. that few people wish to acknowledge.