Author Topic: What would you ask your dying parent?  (Read 2672 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Alderach

  • Tangerine Target
  • *
  • Posts: 29
  • Patron Saint of the Lonely
    • View Profile
What would you ask your dying parent?
« on: October 12, 2020, 02:52:03 AM »
Hello all,
I've been away, but I am always here.
Many things have happened, there is another hat in the family... and my mother died. Last year, but it's still fresh in my mind.
Things haven't been looking so hot for dad either, the past few months. He never really lived alone before, and whilst liberating at first the loneliness has gotten to him and coupled with some health issues making him pretty much bedridden and with COVID haunting the outside and prohibiting most human interaction, well, he is deteriorating. Mom passed very suddenly, she got sick one day, was in the hospital for a week, got better, and then just died during the night. I had a good talk with her the day before, not knowing it was to be our last, though the thought had entered my mind.

With dad though? He is wasting. Becoming forgetful, weak, not eating well. I've set it up so he has daily care in the home now, to make sure he eats, and he will have a doctor checking in on him every now and then, but still, he is weak, and I don't know how much more time he has. I hate to think it, but I might lose him too, soon.

With my mother I have her diaries, and those she wrote for me. Dad writes a lot too, or wrote when he had the energy, but mostly theology and philosophy, though he has written some biographical musings as well.

It all leads me to this question; if you knew or at least suspected your parent(s) were dying, but knew there was still time before sense and sanity left them entirely, or health deteriorated to the point where they could no longer communicate meaningfully; what would you ask them? For those of you who have already lost a loved one, what did you wish you could have said?

My father is the type to hide his emotions, a product of his time and upbringing, but he is both kind and genuinely funny and has given me so much throughout my life - I hope everything turns out for the better but with the way 2020 is going... well, best be prepared for anything.

A hug for those that need or want it, safely electrical and distanced for these interesting times.
Where has it gone?
What I see all around me,
has always been there.
Strangely enough I always found it missing.


TK

  • Unwashed Journeyman
  • ****
  • Posts: 647
  • Too lazy to type Throwback Kid
    • View Profile
Re: What would you ask your dying parent?
« Reply #1 on: October 12, 2020, 09:46:23 AM »
I think it would be:

Mother: As a parent myself I can't reconcile how your actions put me in harms way against your assertion that you had no idea what was happening, what the hell were you thinking?

Dad: Where were you? I can count the days I've spent with you on one hand, can you tell me why and who you were?

I grew apart from my mother when I noticed a growing disparity in how I approach being a parent and the things that happened in my childhood, she was emotionally abusive in her own right and, from the perspective of being an adult with three children, so neglectful in a very focussed way that she allowed life altering things to happen to me I'd never imagine a reasonable person would allow.  I genuinely border on thinking she had full knowledge and either allowed it to perpetuate because of the natural benefit or because she gained direct benefit from it.  She tried to stick herself too far in to the running of my own family so I've not spoken to her for nearly 10 years apart from when she called to tell me of a death in the family and tried to use that as a means to get back in to our live.

My father is Mr radio silence, I remember a handful of days with him when I was younger, he split from my mother before I was born, made an effort to see me born then had a very arms length relationship with me, found me moderately interesting when I got old enough to drink, made an appearance at my wedding then soon after had a tantrum when he couldn't come on a particular Sunday, that was soon after the wedding and I've been married 11 years and I have occasionally tried to reach out to him but... nothing.

I'm occasionally struck with sorrow for myself and that fact that my children don't have grandparents but I genuinely think they're better out of our lives but I'd still wish them well and hope that they find peace from whatever made them deeply flawed individuals.