Reply to “Grandma’s Last Holiday”

Forum Index » Eldercare

Reply to "“Grandma’s Last Holiday”"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]Wow, you seem remarkably self-centered and cold. Dementia is devastating and goes downhill.  While your MIL may live for several more years, he is losing his mother now. I don’t think ceding the holidays to him this one year to transition and grieve is unreasonable. It will be one more chance for him to have memories of his mother, even if she forgets, and to have the opportunity to give her the pleasure of her son while he still can.  This doesn’t mean it will go on for years.  Next year, she’ll probably have either stabilized so it won’t seem as critical, or declined to the point where your presence won’t matter so much to her (although you may want to do something nice for FIL) and your husband won’t be able to have that experience of holiday with Mom, even if he was there.

Eventually, unfortunately, your side of the family will have some misfortune and you’ll need your husband to support you at that time.  That’s where the balance comes in. Alternating holidays is great under normal circumstances, but when something major happens, the normal procedures need to go out the window  to deal with the immediate trauma.  It may mean spending all the holidays with your family some year, or taking care of the kids if you have to go help your family with a medical emergency. While I think my ex-husband was a jerk in a lot of ways, I’ll always be grateful for his support when, after losing 3 grandparents within a month (including the grandmother I was exceptionally close to - one of my best friends), I was basically a walking zombie. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics