My MIL has received a terminal diagnosis yesterday. It might be days, it might be a few weeks.
Unfortunately yesterday I was on a rare business trip and wasn’t here. He learned the news when he went to visit her in hospital for what should have been a minor hospitalization.
He has gone to be with her and I’m looking after our young children. His siblings are there too.
His father died some years ago, before we had children, in somewhat similar circumstances. Hospitalized for something fairly routine and got very bad news and died within days. I found it easier to support him then by being able to be with him, and lots of practical stuff like picking up his siblings at the airport when they flew back to be with their father, looking after family members’ pets etc and mostly just being nearby for him.
This time, I suggested getting my parents to mind our children but he doesn’t want the children feeling too much disruption so he’s at the hospital with his siblings now. Unlike with his dad, he doesn’t seem to want to talk about it either, barely at all.
Should I just take my lead from him and hang back? I’m heartbroken for him, and for my mother-in-law. Id love to see her myself, and talk to her and tell her I love her and what a great son she has, and say goodbye also, but I don’t know if my husband wants me there. This will also be the first bereavement my children experience. I am surprised at how helpless I feel.
Writing this down, the only thing I can do I guess is what he seems to want, which is to hang back. Or should I push his reluctance a little in case he actually needs me and doesn’t want to say it?