Anyone ever read Speaker for The Dead by Orson Scott Card? Speaker is the second book in the ender Series. It;’s a great read and I recommend the book highly. What about the living there should a book called Speaker for the Living. I spent my morning talking with my cousins about issues which seem to be developing with my mom and their mom and dad. This came about because I received intelligence yesterday that my Aunt and Uncle was giving ultimatums to my older brother about moving my mom out of their house for a care facility of one sort or another. My mom, of course, is refusing but I sense a lot of tension building and I m afraid things re going to get explosive before a solution is reached. Feelings are going to get hurt and rifts are going to rise making family communication impossible.
Like I said I spoke with my cousins this morning, the one set of cousins who does a lot of maintenance for the seniors. These two do a great job and I appreciate all they do. The husband of this two person crew is also the first born son so I figured he or his wife would have great insider information. They didn’t or at least that’s what his wife told me. She said they really did not do that much. Actually, she is being a bit modest because I know they do a lot for the seniors. However, she also really did not seem to know what I was talking about and did not seem too over worked with the about of attention they had been paying to the elders. She did indicate another set of cousins are coming down from Washington state in a week to help out.
I am so embarrassed to have become one of those families that I Talk to everyday on the phone here at the office. One of THOSE families who all of the sudden are caught up in lack or preparation, knowledge or resources to care for our senior loved ones. We mare beginning to back bite and blame and talk in whispers and secretes. We need full disclosure as to what is happening and then work to bring resolution where everyone wins and the family will not be riddled with guilt and hard feelings. We need to communicate.
Dianne and I discussed for a great while last night and we felt anguished that there seemed so little we could do and that we have limited intelligence. But, I don’t think my immediate family is getting that good of intelligence anyway. Things seem to be a lot different in the cousins “camp” then in our “camp” Things do not seem to be nearly ad bad as we are hearing. Maybe I am hearing just what I want to hear or what They want me to hear.
My plan of action is I am going to go home and watch “Bones” and try to make myself available in case the seniors need my assistance. The end game does not have to be this difficult—it’s bad enough we are loosing a family member to the grim reaper we should not have to loose living ones as well to consternation.
1 comment:
What's really sad is that this is the only type of communication that we seem to get...and to give! Why can't everybody be open and honest when they communicate, especially with family? Why is it always so hard to tell the people that we love what we really don't want to say, or that they may not want to hear? Are we really protecting anybody's feelings...or are we making it harder in the long run? I much prefer to be bluntly honest, and just wish that everybody else could too. This is a hard issue to deal with, made more difficult by distance, emotion and denial. If it was said, then it was said and lets just deal with it.
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