Please help us in making the right decision, it really aches the heart ...
My uncle is about 60 and he has liver cancer and cirrohsis both late stages, and he is now been handed to hospice ..... he lives in the states, and his mom (my grandma) usually visits him in the states (she lives abroad) once a year and spends a couple of months with him ...
Given that he is her youngest, and I could say favorite, she sees him as the youngest and healthiest of her kids (he has elder sisters but all suffering from different illnesses but living with them) ... he is her pride, her backbone, her pet ... you name it ...
She hasn't seen him now for more than 2 years (the covid situation mainly was the factor) ... but since last year he was diagnosed with liver cancer, and he never told her because she would be devastated let alone pressure him in so many ways .... so to take the pressure away from both of them (that is what he believes) he never told her, and he told his sisters and nieces and nephews not to as well ..... during the course of a year, he kept deteriorating, and now he is in his last stages, doctors say he needs to prepare to die and nothing can be done, and they handed him to hospice, who are giving him the soothing care which is meant to let a person die in peace ...
The crazy thing is his mom does not even know he is sick, she thinks he is her healthy young son full of life, the one she always knew, ... she has been nagging for a year now to see him, and they keep giving her excuses so they don't send her to the states, they tell her its covid and its bad and she can't travel ... and she keeps longing to her son and saying she misses him ...
Tell me please, is it right not to tell her until now? .. her daughters say they are scared she will be devastated (which she will of course) .. they are scared something will happen to her (since her health has deteriorated lately, but mainly pscyhologically, she is having so much anxiety, panic attacks and depression) ...
Do you think it is fair to keep her in the dark? Because we believe she cannot handle it and that she will make a difficult situation worse?
Is it better she knows the news if he passes away? Or better to know it now and see him at his worst and be with him?
Please help us make the right decision for our family
Thank you
I think uncle is making a big mistake, and I'm sorry to say this, but I think the rest of you are going to bear the brunt of grandma's (justifiable) anger once uncle has passed. She is likely going to feel that she was "robbed" of time with him - and in essence, she kinda was - and if he is her favorite as you say he is, don't be surprised if she takes out her anger on the rest of you for not telling her (even though, yes, that responsibility really rested on uncle himself).
I'm so sorry you are going through this. I'm afraid there are no easy answers here. I can only say that if I were your grandma, I'd want to know as soon as possible, even if the news were to "destroy" me, because that's going to happen either way. It's just not natural to outlive your children, and there's really nothing anyone can do to lessen that blow.
My 63-year-old uncle died from complications of heart surgery unexpectedly 2 months after his father had died. My 81-year-old grandmother handled it quite well after the initial shock. By the time you have reached 86 years of age, you have coped with the loss of many people.
Respect his wishes no matter what he decides.
And the fact that your uncles mother lives abroad, she should be given the opportunity to come see him one last time, to say to him what she feel she needs to. It may be too late from what you're describing for her to make it here in time, but she should be given the choice herself. Perhaps you can at least let her facetime with him, before he dies.
No one wants to have any regrets in their life, and I'm afraid if you keep his mom out of the loop, that you all will have to live with that regret of not being honest with her for the rest of your lives. Something to think about for sure.
Praying for Gods peace in this situation.
Of course, that doesn't mean that nobody *will* - cats tend to make their own way out of bags - but if you want the purist ethical line, there it is. Silence, everybody.
You or others (perhaps a pastor, or someone from the hospice team if he won't listen to family) can dispute this point with him. It will be a devastating blow to his mother to learn that her son took months to die and she was never given the opportunity to take her leave of him or adjust to the situation. But you can't know this: it may be that she will be glad she wasn't told. She may agree, ultimately, that she has been spared months of futile desperation or even false hope.
Another suggestion: ask him to write a letter to his mother that she can be given after his death. He doesn't have to explain himself or his decisions, or write about anything he doesn't want to. But he surely does owe it to his adoring mother to leave some record of farewell to her. All members of armed forces going into active areas are required to do this in case of mishap, and it is well established that last words and thoughts from the child a family has lost is of genuine comfort to the bereaved.