Parent on deathbed? Go or not?
My only living parent has between one and five days left to live. The parent is unable to speak now and has had dementia for the last 5 years and will not recognize who I am if I go visit now in these final hours.
They live a few thousand miles away from me; it would be expensive to go and money is painfully tight right now with my partner unexpectedly unemployed and struggling to get a job comparable to the job just lost.
I’m somewhat estranged from this parent. The short version is this parent is a narcissist and really didn’t show up when I was growing up, or at any point in my adult life, or really at any point when it mattered. Despite this person being a really crappy parent, they exerted a massive gravitational pull in my life through many decades—basically, this parent loomed very large for far too long given the extreme narcissism, albeit much less so in the last decade or two. (Dementia and my coming to terms with it all and caring less and time and my having my own kids and my starting my own family all being some sort of salve.)
I have one very close friend who is telling me that it is critical to go before this parent dies because being present while they are still living will give me a kind of closure and unexpected resolutions that I cannot even anticipate now. This friend is quite adamant that going is critical for personal growth.
A different close friend says that going while the person is still alive is a complete waste and that I should go for the funeral instead where I can see other relatives and connect with my sibling and other relatives and deepen those relationships which (the friend says) will be a momentous transition point for us all, creating a better sense of family than any of us could have ever had while this person was alive. This friend insists that the healing and closure is identical pre-death and post-death, but that the extra emotional burden of seeing someone dying will derail me and never be able to be “unseen.” This person thinks spending money on two trips is foolish, so the one trip to go on is for the memorial. FWIW, My sibling is only going for the memorial.
Even if money were no object, I’m not sure I could emotionally handle going twice. I suppose I can, but that’s very time intensive and I have young kids myself who need me and for whom it would be a strain if I were gone for too long. I’ve already said it, but I have to say it again: money is really tight Going twice feels possible, but extremely difficult
I guess what I’m really trying to understand, if my feelings for this parent are presently ambivalence that grew over a decade or two from what was formerly extreme anger and hurt, is there something meaningful about going while the parent is still alive? Is there something important that happens before the person dies that is in someway healing or transformative or valuable? Is it more important to instead go when my sibling is going? Should I max the credit card and go twice? Should I risk infuriating and deeply damaging my relationships with my extended family and not go at all to save money? (This last option seems wrong, but it is a possibility, so I feel like it at least deserves considering.)
Friends of Tildes, what did you gain or lose from seeing a relative in hospice? What thoughts and wisdom do you have to share around moments like these?
Thank you in advance for sharing your stories. I’m sure your collective wisdom will help me make a better choice.
Thank you for all of your comments and insights. As I was agonizing over the right thing to do, he died a little over an hour ago. I’ll go to the memorial. Thank you for sharing your stories and insights. Very grateful for this community.
Coming to this late, but I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for your loss and for all the complex things that led up to it. I hope the aftermath of all this is a time of positive growth for you, and that your partner quickly finds a job.
I'm sorry for your loss, a loss in the past as much or more than a loss now, but I'm glad you were relieved of the go/no-go decision. Mourning is for the living.
Regret is no fun to live with. Look at the cost as the price for guaranteeing you will not have any regrets about not visiting your parent before they die.
I wouldn't expect anything positive from the visit and I would recommend having a support system ready to help you get over it.
Counterpoint: OP is estranged from this parent anyway. I would not feel obligated to go in the slightest and would instead plan to attend the funeral.
Attending or not attending is not a moral matter in my opinion. Given these circumstances, OP should protect and strive to do the greatest good for those that are in their life – viz., their children and partner.
This is just an opinion, and I make no judgement no matter what OP decides to do.
Given all the context about the strained relationship, I would personally regret missing the memorial service more than I would regret missing a last visit. I tend to agree with friend #2.
If it is a person you care for, or if you care about how they think of you, I reverse my opinion completely. But if the relationship is strained as OP describes, and the cold pragmatics of interacting with a person with dementia, I don't think there's any value in that trip.
All this "insisting" by your friends is kinda rubbing me the wrong way, to be honest. Everyone deals with death differently, and having a difficult/non-existent relationship with the person who's dying is an added complication that many people either can't or won't acknowledge.
My only relevant experience was watching my grandma in hospice several years ago. It lasted about 4 months, we lived in the same city, I was unemployed, and I adored that woman. She was more of a mom to me than my own mother, we "got" each other in ways no one else did, and I was there every. day. no matter what. My aunts and uncles thought it was strange, and told me as much, because I was just a granddaughter, but there wasn't a moment of question about where I wanted to be. I looked forward to going, and leaving frightened me, because what if she died when I wasn't there?
Well, she did, about 15 minutes before I showed up that day. Everyone was making the tearful procession back to her room to visit the body one last time.... Everyone but me. Couldn't do it. Decided I didn't need that moment, I needed all the other ones, so I left until the body had been removed. And then I skipped the funeral, because I realized that there was nothing for me there. My family mostly sucks, and there's a lot of them, so I figured they can support each other and I visited the grave on my own later on.
I haven't decided yet about my mother's eventual deathbed/funeral, but I don't think anyone would be shocked if I skipped both (except her, because "missing missing reasons," if you're familiar with that phrase). I haven't seen or spoken to her in 2 years, and they've been the most peaceful 2 years of my life.
So anyway, our situations are different but what it comes down to is: will you actively regret either decision, and would you feel that way in a vacuum (without the judgemental, selfish, or even supportive input from friends and family)? What do you want/need out of this experience, if anything? If you fully distract yourself from the whole thing, what is the first gut reaction to remembering, before your logic catches up? I'm inclined to say that if it's this much of a debate, the answer likely isn't going to both, and it may well be not going to either.
And that's completely ok.
If you feel that going to see them is going to provide you some sort of closure, you should go. But personally speaking, it would have never done that for me. I don’t think there is such a thing as closure when it comes to abusive parents. I’ve thought to myself that even if I got an apology for the painful childhood I had to endure, it wouldn’t be enough. There is no sum of money that would resolve it either. I think you have to be a certain type of person to get positive feelings watching someone die (though I wouldn’t fault them for it per se).
The funeral is another story altogether. You will feel many things if you go, and I think those things will probably be worth feeling even if they aren’t entirely positive. But you know you more than I do.
I eagerly await the death of my mother, as that might actually enable me to reconcile with my father.
Neither is a saint, but only one of them is an active danger to be around.
40 now, been through a few different deaths of varying closeness. Am an atheist, married to a Jewish atheist, for context. Estranged from my own parents for various reasons, though they are not yet on their deathbeds.
My wife's grandmother just died (95 peaceful say thankya), and we don't regret not seeing her in the end. We had a chance, and we didn't take it, as the last memory we all had together was wonderful. There was good relationship there, one where we had all been in frank understanding that any visit might be the last. We'll be going to the memorial soon (no funeral per her wishes, as she was also an atheist).
For those that degraded rapidly, they were almost ashamed to be seen in the end. They wanted to be remembered as the best versions of themselves, not strapped to the bed, shitting themselves, and being at the mercy of assorted chemical marvels.
There's a saying I heard that resonated with me: Funerals are for the living. If you want to make it out there, go for the funeral, not for a questionable experience with someone you worked up to neutral from. I mentioned in a comment that I'm eagerly awaiting the death of my narcissistic mother for a chance to reconcile with dad. If my dad were to be on his deathbed, even with no dementia and no irreconcilable illlwill at play, I wouldn't fly out to say some last words that probably wouldn't be heard. I'd go to the funeral though to bond with the rest of the family (alone though to protect my family from my mother).
I agree with others that the funeral seems more important.
You can sometimes get a better price if you tell the airline that it's for a funeral. It's called a bereavement fare. (Though I don't know how much they do that anymore.)
Having sat by my mother's side while she died, I can say I wouldn't have done it if not for feeling a sense of responsibility to do everything I could to make her passing as easy as possible. Closure works differently for everyone. If you're estranged, then you've already been working to find that closure in your own life. You shouldn't feel obligated to go at all. Not for the bedside farewell, not for the funeral. If you want to reconnect with people at the funeral, do so. If you want to read a statement about how awful your parent was and burn things down, do that. Your different friends have their own relationship with their parents, and with death, and neither of them are right or wrong. But even as they aren't wrong, the advice can be wrong for you. To the degree you say anything about your own opinion, you're focused on the present and the future rather than the past. I'd say keep doing what you're doing. The best way to say farewell to an unpleasant parent is to not be them when you're raising your own kids.
forgiving our fathers
by dick lourie
maybe in a dream: he's in your power
you twist his arm but you're not sure it was
he that stole your money you feel calmer
and you decide to let him go free
or he's the one (as in a dream of mine)
I must pull from the water but I never
knew it or wouldn't have done it until
I saw the street-theater play so close up
I was moved to actions I'd never before taken
maybe for leaving us too often or
forever when we were little maybe
for scaring us with unexpected rage
or making us nervous because there seemed
never to be any rage there at all
for marrying or not marrying our mothers
for divorcing or not divorcing our mothers
and shall we forgive them for their excesses
of warmth or coldness shall we forgive them
for pushing or leaning for shutting doors
for speaking only through layers of cloth
or never speaking or never being silent
in our age or in theirs or in their deaths
saying it to them or not saying it -
if we forgive our fathers what is left
This is beautiful. Thank you.
My condolences for your loss. I'm sure they would feel very fortunate to know that, despite the estrangement, they were the parent to someone with such forebarence and magnanimity. My heart goes out to you.
I can't speak to your situation, and the only advice I'd give is a question: which choice do you feel most comfortable living with?
Potentially unrelated anecdotes
I've never had the chance to visit a relative in hospice. All my relatives live in Europe, I'm in America. The closest I got was when my mom visited with my grandma at her deathbed, and I was able to video call in.
That was really hard. It still comes up in my memories sometimes.
Many years ago, my grandfather called me to tell me he was going to die the next day, that he'd like me to be at his funeral, and that he'd arranged a flight for me to get there. This call, seemingly out of the blue, left me lost. Much like you, I organized my thoughts into writing, but I could send them to my grandfather as my last words to him. Excerpts were read at his eulogy.
That was also hard. That phone call will never leave my mind.
I'm not sure if these disjointed thoughts will help in any way, or were even topical. My original point stands - whatever you do, it's the decision you'll live with and only you need to be comfortable with it.
I'd say visit your parent.
My uncle passed away five years ago from stage 4 lymphoma which had spread across his body within weeks, and ended his life within less than six months of diagnosis. Even though I wasn't exactly close with him, one of my biggest regrets was that I didn't visit him in hospital or while he was at home undergoing hospice care.
Both of my parents kept discouraging me from going because they didn't want me to see my uncle in the state he was. Now I kinda wish they hadn't.