To think the flowers should be cancelled?

[FairfaxAikman]

My DGF (in his 90s) has had a massive stroke yesterday and won't survive - we are basically marking the hours at this point.
But it's let to a bit of a disagreement between me and my DF.

My grandparents 64th wedding anniversary is next week. DGF has ordered flowers, as he has every year.
I think they should be cancelled as receiving them so soon would destroy my DGM, who is in poor health herself.
DF thinks they should be left as it's what DGF wants.

AIBU to think it's a bad idea?

Don’t ‘warn’ anyone. Just leave it.

You can dry flowers really easily in silica gel granules in the microwave. Google it and get a bunch to do a trial.
I'm sorry for your loss

I'm sorry OP, my post was harsh and sweary and unnecessary

Sending lots of love OP. Completely understand where your head is at and it's unfair people have been so harsh on you. I think it was completely reasonable to think your grandmother may be completely broken by the flowers and to consider cancelling them. Faced with things we can't control, we inevitably try to micro manage the things we can. That's an entirely normal human reaction. You were considering doing this with the very best of intentions and have come on here to check you were being reasonable - which again shows how much you care for grandmother. All I can say is she's lucky to have you. Look after yourself and please don't worry about some of the negative comments on here.

Absolutely don't cancel them. I know someone who was in a similar situation and they later arranged for the flower bouquet to be dried (as they do for wedding bouquets etc) so that the GM had a lasting keepsake of the last flowers her husband bought her.

I can see why you think warning your grandmother would be a kind thing to do, and I can see why you thought cancelling the flowers would have been right. You want to save your grandmother pain, I understand that.

But the thing is, she’s going to feel that pain anyway. When the flowers come, she will very possibly be very upset.

But that’s a good upset. It’s a beautiful precious memory in amongst all the awfulness and the desolation and the loss

You want to protect her, because you love her. But you can’t protect her from this loss. By letting the flowers arrive, you’re letting this be a safe outlet if she needs it, or else a loving kind memory, very possibly both.

Don’t warn her. Let her have her anniversary gift just as she always has. I can imagine you want to warn her so she can prepare herself for the shock. But it may not be a shock, and in that case, your kindly meant warning will just steal the hot from her. Or it might be a shock, but all that warning her will do is to upset her earlier on.

Let her be sad. Let her feel the pain. Comfort her, of course, but to support her best you cannot interfere in her grief. You cannot carry it for her yourself although I’m sure in love you’d like to if you could. But it doesn’t work like that. Be there. Listen. Let her talk if she wants to, let her not talk if she doesn’t. But you can’t make this better for her, and by trying to protect her from it, you run the risk offer coming to resent you for it.

I’m sure in the days ahead there will be lots you can do for her. You can field phone calls if she wants you to, you can shield her from the outside world if that’s what she needs, you can take care of family arguments so she doesn’t have to be pulled into them or know they happened at all. But that’s running interference against the outsiders. Don’t try to run interference against the grief itself.

I’m sorry you are losing your grandfather.

@SilenceOfThePrams

I can see why you think warning your grandmother would be a kind thing to do, and I can see why you thought cancelling the flowers would have been right. You want to save your grandmother pain, I understand that.

But the thing is, she’s going to feel that pain anyway. When the flowers come, she will very possibly be very upset.

But that’s a good upset. It’s a beautiful precious memory in amongst all the awfulness and the desolation and the loss

You want to protect her, because you love her. But you can’t protect her from this loss. By letting the flowers arrive, you’re letting this be a safe outlet if she needs it, or else a loving kind memory, very possibly both.

Don’t warn her. Let her have her anniversary gift just as she always has. I can imagine you want to warn her so she can prepare herself for the shock. But it may not be a shock, and in that case, your kindly meant warning will just steal the hot from her. Or it might be a shock, but all that warning her will do is to upset her earlier on.

Let her be sad. Let her feel the pain. Comfort her, of course, but to support her best you cannot interfere in her grief. You cannot carry it for her yourself although I’m sure in love you’d like to if you could. But it doesn’t work like that. Be there. Listen. Let her talk if she wants to, let her not talk if she doesn’t. But you can’t make this better for her, and by trying to protect her from it, you run the risk offer coming to resent you for it.

I’m sure in the days ahead there will be lots you can do for her. You can field phone calls if she wants you to, you can shield her from the outside world if that’s what she needs, you can take care of family arguments so she doesn’t have to be pulled into them or know they happened at all. But that’s running interference against the outsiders. Don’t try to run interference against the grief itself.

I’m sorry you are losing your grandfather.

This is wonderful advice, so perfectly put.

Yes, we are a family with plenty of doctors, FairfaxAikman . Palliative medicine even, but still we all got it wrong and still she lingers between worlds. You just can’t tell. We did rapid discharge for six weeks CCF for end of life care, but that was eighteen months ago. I sincerely hope he doesn’t face the same limbo, but it’s genuinely impossible to tell..

Don’t cancel the flowers. Yabu.

My Grandad died a few days before Valentines Day, a brain tumour. On Valentines Day, gifts arrived for my Grandma. It made a difficult time easier for her.

So not your decision to make.

So glad you’ve been persuaded, OP. Now hopefully you’ll also take the excellent advice not to warn her either. It won’t help and might well spoil something very special.