Life Advice - Mature Children and Dying Relatives

Ron said:
He shared his single biggest fear is not being remembered. I advised that maybe a risk worth taking.
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I think this is where my personal dilemma would fall if I were in a similar situation. If Nana wanted to see me and knew who I was, I feel like I would go see her, however hard it may be. But if she wouldn't, then I'd much rather remember our last time together being a positive one for both of us. With that said though, I'm not a big regrets kinda person, so I rarely think about how I will feel about something in the future. It sounds like whatever he decides he will be comfortable with in the end.

Duane
 
I glad you posted this, my grandmother passed last fall, and the last several years were really hard as dementia got worse. I cherish every minute spent with her, even when I know she didn't know who I was at times.
This thread also reminded me to check in on my grandpa. He's 90, lives alone. Found out he spent last weekend in the hospital.
Check in on your loved ones, we never know when they'll be gone for good.
 
If you can get him to go and see them do it. Not one of us on here want's to see a loved one in that way but it will help your loved one be at peace and not wondering why they don't come see them. Also it put your son at ease in the future knowing he was there for them when they needed him. I know nobody want's to have that memory of them in that shape but the good memory's will out shine the bad one's. They will be more time's like this in their life like dealing with mom and pop's or sibling passing in the future wich might help them to deal with that in the future. Sorry for the pain you are going through will say a prayer for your family.
 
He is young and don't understand he will regret it in the long run, explain it to him like this.
The rest of his life is a long time to live with the regret of a couple of weeks.
 
He needs to go. my great grandmother i use to go see maybe once a month just to check on her. carry wood inside for her, ya 98 and still building a fire every morning. i knew she wasnt doing good and had been checking on her fairly regular. i was in the area but in a rush to get somewhere else and didnt stop and check on her, she passed on the next week. Her son my pappaws brother i always stopped a couple times a year and talked with him and made sure i could still hunt his property, i sat with him for about 3 hours one afternoon in the spring and he passed a couple months later. im sure glad i got to talk to him.
 
Loganwayne said:
He needs to go. my great grandmother i use to go see maybe once a month just to check on her. carry wood inside for her, ya 98 and still building a fire every morning. i knew she wasnt doing good and had been checking on her fairly regular. i was in the area but in a rush to get somewhere else and didnt stop and check on her, she passed on the next week. Her son my pappaws brother i always stopped a couple times a year and talked with him and made sure i could still hunt his property, i sat with him for about 3 hours one afternoon in the spring and he passed a couple months later. im sure glad i got to talk to him.
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That's awesome Logan. And I'm not attempting to take ANYTHING away from what you've said.....however alzheimer's disease changes things significantly. It does a great deal of damage to everyone around it. Sometimes it changes the person suffering from it so vastly that they are simply a shell of the person they were.
Children have a very different obligation to those who are suffering than grandchildren. And everyone is different. But sometimes.....the memory of how a grandparent can recognize their grandchild is a better in the log run than that "last memory" of them not even having a clue who you are.
Again...some of you may think that's horribly selfish...but it's just a different perspective.
 
CasterTroy said:
That's awesome Logan. And I'm not attempting to take ANYTHING away from what you've said.....however alzheimer's disease changes things significantly. It does a great deal of damage to everyone around it. Sometimes it changes the person suffering from it so vastly that they are simply a shell of the person they were.
Children have a very different obligation to those who are suffering than grandchildren. And everyone is different. But sometimes.....the memory of how a grandparent can recognize their grandchild is a better in the log run than that "last memory" of them not even having a clue who you are.
Again...some of you may think that's horribly selfish...but it's just a different perspective.
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I appreciate the perspective and share it as well. It’s why I started the thread. I see both sides.
I dont want too much out there- but we are past the personality change point. We are at the shutting down drive to eat, selective ocular paralysis stage.
But conversation is still there it’s a shell to be sure but the soul is still in there however deep it may be
 
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Ron said:
I appreciate the perspective and share it as well. It’s why I started the thread. I see both sides.
I dont want too much out there- but we are past the personality change point. We are at the shitting down drive to eat, selective ocular paralysis stage.
But conversation is still there it’s a shell to be sure but the soul is still in there however deep it may be
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Completely understand. That's not far off from how my grandma was towards the last. Personally, I wanted to see her and for her to see me just in case there was still a spark of her left that could recognize me, whether she could outwardly show it or not.
 
Similar boat myself. My mom's dad just passed last week. He had been steadily declining for the last 10 years it seemed. Dementia/alzheimer's are a terrible disease. My mom was with him every day as his caretaker and it honestly hurt more watching her just become more and more exhausted as each day passed. I grew up in my grandparents home since around age 5. We would go over there every Wednesday for pizza night and Sunday after church. I've told my mom that I've already grieved for him years ago and when he passed it was honestly a blessing(for him and my mom). The wife and I did see him about 5 days before we passed and he didn't remember us at all(which was expected). Even with the close family ties, I felt more connected to my dad's side down in Georgia and those deaths were extremely hard.

I'm still happy that I went and saw him even if he didn't remember me, just for my mom's sake.
 
Grandpa Tom died in 2002. One hell of a man, he served with the Seabees during WWII on Tinian, Tarawa, and other South Pacific islands. I visited him 4 days before he passed, after having some reluctance to do so. He asked me my name several times, and while I was there, he had a bad fall in the bathroom. Glad I was there when it happened, but seeing him in that state, on the bathroom floor in his tighty whities, was beyond difficult.

19 years later, I am so glad I went. Cannot fathom how I'd feel now if I did not go.

So there's $.02, worth even less.
 
I have found that forcing things on adult or almost adult children usually doesn't work as intended and may open a gulf not easily closed. Lay it out there, explain your position and that you will love them and respect their decision regardless.
You have my prayers that is for sure.
 
There's no right or wrong here as each of deal with things a certain way. My take is/would have been something along the lines of "courage not being the absense of fear but the victory over it". But that's just me. You're a great dad and he's a great kid. We all process things like that differently.

Some of y'all were around back in the day when my dad died from a tractor flipping on top of him. I got the call from his friend who found him when he didn't show for a lunch meeting. When I arrived at my folk's house, my dad's friend told me I probably didn't want to see him in the condition he was in (under a Massey 135). I went anyway, held his body and kissed his forehead. I'll never forget any of the sensations I felt that moment. It was gut wrenching, but for me, totally neccesary.
 
CasterTroy said:
Having been that kid...having been spared that "last visual"

I have no regrets, and am very thankful I wasn't forced to have it. My memory stays in tact and isn't tainted.

Selfish? Maybe...but given that I wouldn't have been recognized helped make that decision for me
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I am also in this camp. My father started a very rapid decline after a fall at his house last December. I had the opportunity to go down and visit him in a near vegetative state as my sister did, but I declined, having stored the memory of him in my head of a good dinner out with him where he was full of life and laughs from earlier last year. He passed away peacefully in Hospice not long after my sister had left. She had barely gotten to her car when they called her back in and he was gone.

I had to weigh the pros and cons, but I don't regret not going. I'm sure my sister thinks I'm the most selfish person in the world - and maybe I am, but I choose to remember the good times, not the times he was hooked to tubes and machines.
 
In my opinion, you can just suggest and say your peace. What your son does with it is the learning experience.

I am 35, an only child, with no remaining parents or grandparents and I have handled each loss with a different reaction based on my growth and/or (sadly) numbness to death at this point in my life. Both of my grandfathers passed and I was too young to get it. My father's passing was expected and we were blessed for the extra 4.5 years of time packed with lessons I got with him. I still have "you dumb son of a bitch, this is what he meant" moments. His mother was so far gone with Alzheimer's and dementia, I was just glad it was over and but sad that I am sure she died not knowing her son was dead already. That is a long story for another day. My mother's passing was so sudden I just went into "go" mode and started getting things handled. It was a gargantuan task, but all I could do was move forward. I am just blessed that I had already met my wife and she understands my numbness to it all and how I handled it. Then my mom's mother expectedly passed a couple of months later. I was so caught up in handling what was already on my plate, I just went about my business and it really didn't affect me. I am still sad, as that is the person I was closest with besides my parents, but I was more at ease as she had become a different person. I'll never remember her as she was in her final months, but as the woman I grew up with every summer.

There is no right or wrong way to handle it. Just push him in a certain direction that you, in your core, feel is right and the rest is something he will learn and grow from.
 
StretchASU said:
I'll never remember her as she was in her final months, but as the woman I grew up with every summer.
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This. I generally don't think about the bad with people I miss, I think about the good.
 
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