help with mum

elona

moggins

I really know how you feel! Big Hug and the best of luck.

margaretclare

moggins wrote:

It's not my fault that he refused to make friends or allow anyone near the house when we were younger and now has no one to talk to(

Hi moggins

Your post reminds me of a conversation I had with a very experienced GP, this was way way back in the early 1970s when I was a district nurse. We had been talking about the problem of lonely old people. I used to visit old women to treat their leg ulcers, and they did not want the leg ulcers treated with new preparations, medications etc designed to cure the problem because they DID NOT want me to stop coming! As long as they had a leg ulcer they were sure of having one person visiting them in the week. I thought this was so sad, and I said so. I've never forgotten what this GP said. 'Don't forget that many of these "lonely old people" may have spent years, decades even, in being miserable and unpleasant to their nearest and dearest, may have spent those years driving people away, and then when they get old and lonely they wonder why, and think that they deserve attention and company just because they have got old'.

Isn't your Dad concerned at all about his sick granddaughter and his wife in hospital? Shouldn't he be visiting your Mum, never mind how 'lonely' he is???

Margaret Clare

elona

As always "Aunty Margaret" you have hit the nail on the head.

Concern and sympathy should be a two way street!

flossy_splodge

Isn't it a pity that there are all these people around who have loving caring relatives willing to 'give' of themselves but that do so on a restricted basis often because of the lack of common decency received in return. I wonder if future generations will manage better? I was chatting to a pal this evening and discussing whether I 'ought' to send my father a Father's Day card. My difficulty is not a lack of generosity of spirit on my part but an awareness that if I do he will take it that I have realised I was 'wrong' and am acknowledging it by sending him a card. I am reluctant to give him the chance to put his own spin on things again and really am getting stronger by the day whilst actually missing the few good times we had. Talk about Catch 22. My daughter who has contributed to this thread hopes I stick with the 'no contact' line which actually doesn't help as I feel I will now be judged as 'giving in' if contact were to be resumed!! I am quite clear in my mind that nothing is worth the pain of the last few months so first contact will not be from me. That's not being stubborn or arrogant, just self preservation. Know what makes me really sad? I am a volunteer radio presenter at out local hospital and had arranged a 1 hour 'special' programme on Sunday when my Dad was going to be in the studio with me and I would play all his favourite songs. That's out the window of course but others will lose too - if you think of the average age of patients in a general hospital, my fathers music may have been a real trip down memory lane for them! I'll still be doing a programme on Sunday, just not the one planned. That makes me sad. Will he care? Not a jot.

margaretclare

Hi flossy_splodge

No, DON'T send your Dad a Father's Day card! You know exactly how he will construe such a gesture - don't do it! After all, what's Father's Day anyway? Another of those American festivals that your Dad never heard of in his youth, one of those yucky sentimental ideas designed to get us to spend money. My DH has friends in the USA who regularly send me Mother's Day greetings in June, and when I say 'but we had our Mother's Day already - it was in March, it's the fourth Sunday in Lent' they think I'm being a bit mean. Let them!! Their idea of Mother's Day is similar to Father's Day - a recent invention.

Re trips down memory lane, I am not into all that very much. But I'll never forget a certain occasion when DH and I were sitting by a lake on Victoria Island in western Canada, just having a picnic lunch and listening to a 'golden oldies' station on the radio of the rental car. And the song was Perry Como singing 'And I Love You So'. DH turned to me with such a look in his eyes. The words are:

'And I love you so
The people ask me how
How I've lived till now?
I tell them, I don't know.....'

It goes on:

'And yes, I know how lonely life has been
But life began again
The day you took my hand'.

DH took my hand and looked at me and said 'yes, that's exactly what happened'. And he told me he had seen Perry Como at the London Palladium and 'he held the audience in the palm of his hand'.

Lovely memories, and not too far back, either!

There's also a fairly modern song which goes something like: 'I want to stay with you for ever/Until the sky falls down on me'. We like that one too.

Best wishes

Aunty Margaret

home_alone

My mother (now gone) broke her leg, at this time she was living close to my sister in Camberley (father died 2 years previous) When she came out of hospital it appeared she had given up and would not try to walk although she could. My sisters and I after much debate decided to put her into a nearby nursing home it was very expensive over 2K a month this was back in 1996. I visited the home (I live in South Wales) a few weeks after and was absolutely disgusted in the way my mother was being treated, 2 days later I had arranged to put her in a nusring home about 500 yards from where I live, boy did I have a ding dong with the previous homes manager the air was blue.
Anyway this is my reason for this post, I made sure that at least one of my family visited my mother once a day taking her, her favourite tit bits, the moral of this story is that my children now know how awful some of these homes can be and on fear of the inheritance going to a cats home they have promised to look after which one of us lives the longest. Up to this point I had been very ignorant on nursing homes etc, if my mother had not been completely disabled and needing 24 hour attention she would not have gone into a home in the first place. Those that take on such challenges have my deepest respect.

gary

flossy_splodge

Just a quick update to all of you who have been so kind on this thread. I DID send my father a card today - I found the most amazing one. It said: Just remember this Fathers day....how lucky you are to have a kid like me!! I thought it was too perfect to ignore. haven't had a response and not looking for one but it addressed my conscience without being two faced. How good was that! Had a really great Radio prog - on my own! Played some lovely oldy music and managed some wry comments which made ME feel better; like when i played Harry Secombe singing "if I ruled the world" and deicated it to my father with the aside "he wishes". I so enjoyed myself. it was cathartic! Also helped by going to the local Peace festival yesterday and meeting some lovely people and having a Shiatsu session. Never had one before. Was floating all afternoon! Not sure if it was the treatment or what i was breathing in;) if you know what I mean. Onwards and upwards.:rolleyes:

margaretclare

Hi flossy_splodge

Glad you had a good day and that you're feeling better and more positive. Keep on going - remember life is for living!

DH had a card from his daughter - lovely, she's good at remembering things like that. He phoned her to say thank you. Apparently in his family some people don't speak to others etc etc - he says he feels like banging their silly heads together. DH knows all about family disapproval - he has a lot of cousins who won't speak to him because he is now of a different religion to them, 'married out' as they put it, we're not just talking Catholics and Protestants here. But if they don't want to know us then we don't want to know them - life is too short, just get on with enjoying whatever comes your way!

Best wishes

Aunty Margaret

flossy_splodge

Well well well! Had a phone call this evening which luckily my sixth sense was in full working order so I screened but did not pick up. Yep. father. A sorrowful little voice saying thank you for his card and that mine was the only one he received! It all beggars belief. I understand that my elder brother has decided to take up cudgels on my behalf so my guess is that father is covering his bases so he is not alienated by all at the same time. Meanwhile I'm feeling OK. Strange isn't it? Thanks for your kind comments Aunty Margaret.:A

Bogof_Babe

I can so identify with this thread, although still fighting the fear of being disloyal by posting about my own background, but here goes...

My dad has spent his whole life disapproving, of anything and everything. He wouldn't let us watch Coronation Street as kids "because of the dreadful voices", he hates anything English (he was born in Ireland but England gave him a jolly good living for over 60 years :rolleyes: ), he never thought I was doing well enough at school - although I was above average, I was a total disappointment to him because I wasn't top of the class. My sister only scraped through the approval barrier by getting 12 Grade A 'O' Levels and 4 Grade A 'A' Levels.

However we took this as normal, not knowing any different, and realising that at some stage we would have our own lives to lead. But he was at the same time systematically falling out with all the neighbours, and any friends mum tried to make. He was just a walking black cloud for more decades than I care to recall.

Now he is 88, extremely frail, tending towards senility, and has lost interest in everything he used to mildly enjoy, like reading the paper or watching the News on TV a dozen times a day.

I am their main carer as my sister lives away, but comes down as often as she can. I just can't feel warm towards him, like I do my mum, as the disapproval thing looms so large in my memory. I feel more compassion for him now than I have ever done, as he is clearly in a bad way, but I cannot turn on that "darling dad" mentality. I can't face any personal care for him, although I bath my mum. I can't even change his bedding without cringing. I'm sure the problem is mainly mine, and I ought to "rise above it and let bygones be bygones". I think I'd need therapy before that could happen though.

I've posted this as a salutory warning to parents who might think it doesn't matter now what messages they are giving their children, as they are only children and "don't count". You are actually sowing the seeds of your entire future relationship with them.

If I could turn back the clock nothing would be different, as my dad was stuck in his own mindset, but I might have tried harder to understand him and find out why he was so unhappy with life.

All the posters on here have my deepest sympathy - it ain't easy and it is often no more than a cross we have to bear.