Author Topic: 45 Years Ago This Month, or When Should a Parent Tell Offspring That Other Parent is Terminal?  (Read 173 times)

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Offline JBG

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My heart goes out to you in sympathy for what was clearly a devastating experience for you.
Actually the far worse part was the initial operation and the disruption of family relationships and friendships that it caused.  I knew through my reading by January 1972 and talking to the doctor while on vacation in Barbados in February 1972 (operation was in last week of August 1971) that, though he appeared healthy he wasn't going to live. My "friends" from second to eighth grade (this was 9th grade year) were extremely unhelpful and that's putting it mildly. My mother was little better. When she came home from the hospital during August - September 1971 she raced for the phone to start calling her friends. She would say "I have to thank (fill in the blank) for something and it will be five minutes and then she was on the phone for an hour. Then another call and another hour. And this was my first year of high school, which had its own misadventures, partly due to what I was experiencing.

By the time she told me the "news" on December 15, 1972 my response to her was to say, basically,"duh, like I didn't already know that." The year was going much better in school and I had somewhat left behind my elementary and middle school friends for new ones, one of whom I am still close with and had lunch with last Friday.

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.
Maybe one doesn't have to tell literally when they find out but certainly at the point when the sick person's health is definitely on a persistent decline. The worse sin was: a) Not telling my father; and b) Not allowing me to tell my father.

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. 
I had my own merry story with Ensure. When my mother was on hospice they gave her Ensure whenever she said she was thirsty. When I tried to have that process stopped the hospice agency threatened a referral to Adult Protective Services. Ditto if I switched hospice providers. My Rabbi (a religious official) referred me to "Westchester Right to Die Coalition" which recommended that I call an ethics meeting with the board of the hospice. Though the meeting did not go smoothly (more if you're interested) they got the message and asked for authority to administer morphine five days later. She was dead two days later. She lingered on hospice for ten months.

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.
My stepsisters were a big help. I don't understand how the "avoiders" and "cryers" can consider themselves adults.
Trump - Watch what he does, not how he says it.

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