What a light subject. I lost my mom (DLM) at a fairly young age. I was 24. She was only 47. She lived for about 12 to 13 months after the diagnosis. I had just moved 600 miles away to another state. 3 weeks after I relocated to another state, we learned about my mom's cancer. My boyfriend, who was diagnosed the previous December with cancer. He was 29. My beloved late husband. We got married in 1991. More on DLM and BLH in other posts, I am sure. There is a LOT to unpack there.
My father (F) died just 3 years ago. F was devastated when DLM died. I worried a lot about F while I was working in a diff state, 600+ miles away, dealing with BLH cancer. But, F remarried soon. To C (crazy). C was crazy, but not mean. Just crazy and selfish. She took half of what 1) my dad and my mother had worked 30 years together to build. She and F had a bumpy marriage, surprise. Enough about C. If I come back here, it will be because of how F let this all happen. Not because of C. C was opportunistic.
Eventually my husband (BLH) passed away, I was 26. 2 years to the month after my mom passed. That was the closest I ever was to F, when he supported me after losing BLH. He and my dear grandmother came to my home in another state and helped me through the hospital, the dying and the memorial, funeral and burial. They were very supportive of me.
Looking back, I know how hard this must have been for them, both of them also being widowed. And they loved BLH, he was a GREAT guy. Plus, I have always been very close to my DGM.
Not too long after that, F and C parted ways. F eventually married A. A was 3 years older than I. But my DGM and my sister and I were hopeful that F had found someone to make him happy. Fast forward about 20 years later and F is on his death bed from cancer. By now, A has made it clear to DG, D3 and I that she does not like us.
Over the years, once my DGM became too old to host holidays, we stopped getting together. My sister and I each lived in different states. DGM lived in same city as F and A. A said to my DGM that A hated having people in her home. Told us she did not want to exchange gifts and once got furious when I bought my sister a gift, but not buy A's daughter. Over the years when A would be mean to my sister and my DG, I would speak up. A and F have a boy. His only boy. I tried to get to know my half brother, but it was hard since he is 30 years younger than me. Most of this, I took in stride, understanding that A just wanted to be a family with F and not have 2 young women barely younger than herself as her "instant family". But when A was mean to my DGM and sister, I spoke up. It affect my relationship with F. The tipping point was when my F and A starting taking money from DGM.
I had enough. DGM was selective in what she would share with me, knowing my relationship with F was already strained. Eventually, it started coming out because DGM got older and more frail and it began to take a toll on her. By this time, I could not longer tolerate the casual once or twice breazy phone conversations F tried to initiate with me, knowing what he was doing to his own mother. So, I told F I could not just go on like this, casually speaking once a year and meeting once a year at a restaurant for Christmas, usu in January. I called F to tell A to stop putting my DGM in the middle. If they wanted to ask questions about me, then call me. Period. I was not going to play that game.
I did not have a big falling out with F. I just told him that when I came to town to see DGM, I would not be continuing to make attempts to see him because it was too painful for me. I was worried about DGM and how they were treating her. So, in the new technological age of 2012 I unfriended F on FB! Very anticlimactic. It was like pulling off a bandaid for me. Quick and clean. My sister, D3 wisely left the door cracked open.
Anyway, the reason all this came up in my mind is a relationship in my life now with F's sister, my aunt (A1). A1 sort of went along with F and A, using DGM's resources. I worry a lot about 1) whether DGM will have enough resources at the end and 2) her state of mind knowing how her kids have acted and 3) her state of mind already thinking she has lived too long and if she was dead, then they would have received their inheritance. I have tried to relay this end of life message to A1. This past weekend, I was a little more direct.
I know these things to be true because when F was diagnosed with cancer in 2013, I decided I could not let him die without making amends. For my sake and DGM sake. So, I called him. I went to see him about a week after he was diagnosed. We had some casual catching up to do and I just tried to smooth things over, be positive and helpful. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done.
DH encouraged this truce. So, even while the dependence on my DGM intensified, I was supportive of her helping her son. As long as she felt like she could afford it, I was on board. Then, after about 8 months, F stopped treatment. The request for money became a request for part of her estate, now, before my dad passed. DGM finally had to say no. I enlisted my DH to get involved. A had always liked DH. DH is a nice, tall, handsome man. DH is quiet and thoughtful. DH used to be a police. DH knows how to exert an air of authority. DH knows how to calm emotional family situations. A trusted him.
DH and I called a meeting with A, as F lay dying and my DGM was sick with worry. DH told A that she needed to "man" up and assure her dying husband that she and AJ (their son) would survive without him. That F lived a good life and left a wonderful legacy of a son and they would miss him - but they would survive. She assured DH that she had told F as much. DH explained to her that F had told me and his mother that he was afraid for A and AJ. She tried to deny again, but then she admitted that she was indeed scared she would lose the house and would have to move and she did not want to. She wanted AJ to be able to stay in the same home after his father died. She worried how AJ would pay for college. She admitted that they all figured DGM would have died and left money for them to pay off their house and pay for AJs college. And she cried and agreed that she would try harder to reassure F. It was only in the subsequent moments of reflection that DH and I recounted this strange conversation and realized the gravity of the admissions A made. To this day, we still marvel at how selfish and weak A was, as we tried to teach her how to support a dying loved one.
I am now in the stages of navigating a similar message with DGM daughter. A woman in her late 70's. A 70 year old woman who expects others to help her. I recently helped her. I don't feel used, but I feel tired. And blessed.
Because the F that I saw who let his values become negotiable, is the same F who taught me my work ethic. I guess it was more my mom who taught me the value of a dollar.
