Author Topic: 45 Years Ago This Month, or When Should a Parent Tell Offspring That Other Parent is Terminal?  (Read 171 times)

0 Members and 4 Guests are viewing this topic.

guest4

  • Guest
My heart goes out to you in sympathy for what was clearly a devastating experience for you.

I have never been in that situation but I think I would likely tell my (older) kids when I knew for sure.  Would that be when the doctor told me?  I don't know.  My personal experience is that people cling to the hope that through some miracle their loved one will live and even entertaining the thought that they may not seems disloyal and wrong.  Saying so out loud even more so.

When my mother was dying I went home to help care for her.  She was bedridden, slept much of the time, survived on Ensure because she couldn't eat solids, was incontinent and had care aids in three times a day to clean her and the bedding.  I had been there a week when my Dad said "She is not going to get better, is she?"  It was clear until that point he had hoped for otherwise. 

My sister-in-law at the time was unable to come into the house without crying and four of my six siblings spent much time avoiding; one never even came.  Ultimately it was myself, a sister and a niece who carried most of the load during my mother's last days.  Its not that the rest of the family didn't love my mother, but that they couldn't accept or cope with what was happening to her.  Its such a very personal and emotional time for everybody, I think few people handle these things with grace and poise, and nobody really knows the "right" thing to do or even if there is a single "right" thing to do in every case.