Our son's fiancee's father has terminal cancer, just diagnosed, in every bone in his body. Not much life left according to the medical personnel. My husband and I are trying to console our son and help him with this but we realize that this is a hurdle we have not crossed. We have four living parents. We have not had to deal with the messy end of life issues with our parents yet although we find ourselves, more and more, trying to approach subjects with them that were avoidable for many years. How do you talk to your parents about their finances, their end of life wishes, their imagined legacy, their spiritual thoughts. We are having a hard time in our 50's and our son and future daughter in law are 23. I find myself at a loss for words as he asks me questions about what to say to her, to them, how to get information, provide support, deal with medical people, on and on the list goes.
Although there have been times when I have not been able to answer his questions over the years I now find myself struggling not only to help him but also pondering for myself how to grapple with these big issues. Our parents have been so self sufficient and independent that there have been few openings for these serious conversations. It is in the nature of parents to say, "don't worry about us, we have everything taken care of." But do we?
If nothing else this has been an awakening for me in terms of how I want to talk with our children. I realize that the earlier these conversations start and the more willingness we show to discuss the hard stuff the easier it will be for them as we come to the time in our life when we need them to worry about us and take care of us. I hope that we don't have to burden them with our cares but the reality is that the only people in our lives who care about us as much as we care about each other are our children. I wish that our son did not have to take this on right now but there is no good time. We won't know the time or place of our death. But we can lay the groundwork for ongoing conversation with our kids about the tough stuff. I want them to know about our vulnerabilities as well as our strengths even if that is scary for them and for us.
We die alone but we don't have to die uncared for. How much support and love we receive in the end is related to how much we are willing to be open to receiving it. We are walking through the grocery store today picking over heads of lettuce and discussing these big, tough subjects. I love to shop with our children, the grocery store has been the center of a lot of good conversation over the years. I hope we have a lot more years of shopping together, picking over the lettuce, and debating whether to buy the chocolate chip or peanut butter cookies. I love our kids, I hate it that they will most likely have to deal with our dying, and I thank God everyday that we have them in our lives. We may die alone but our love for them will live on.
