Adult nephew not visiting uncle in hospice.

[FenderStrat]

I would like some perspective, please on a difficult family situation.
My brother has a brain tumour. There are no viable treatment operations anymore, and he has been moved into a hospice for what will be the few weeks of his life. He's 58. Married no children.

He has no nieces and one nephew who is 22 years old. His nephew's parents have said that he won't be visiting his uncle. Because it's a bit distressing, and they want him to remember his uncle as he was when he was in good health. They live 8 miles from the hospice.

To me, this is what you would say to a 14 year old not a grown man.

AIBU to think that this grown man should make his own decision and not be told what to do by his parents. Also, surely as a grown man you sometimes have to face difficult situations even if you don't want to, because sometimes doing the right thing is difficult and that's just part of adult life.

My brother's level of cognition is such that he'll never know whether his nephew visits or not. But I do know if he were able to understand this he would want his nephew to visit.

It's very difficult to get a handle on this due to my close proximity to the situation.

Yep

Everybody is different. That's not too difficult to understand.

I thought his behaviour was very inconsiderate. My mum spent years and years driving backwards and forwards. My uncle could have visited his brother at least once or twice a year. It’s not how close relatives should treat each other.

Why?

My nephew didn't visit my Dad in the final weeks of his life. He is 34 yrs old. I absolutely respected and understood his decision. He'd visited his Gramp in hospital before his huge decline towards the end and wanted his last memories of him to be happier than of the shell of a man he would have seen in his deathbed in a nursing home. My Dad wouldn't have wanted him to visit at the end if it was going to upset him so much. Everyone is different and that needs to be respected.

Where has OP given any indication that she would force anyone to do anything?

And of course it's about her loss. She is grieving, she is allowed to share that on an anonymous forum without people trying to make her feel bad and tell her that her own brother's death isn't about her.

You can come together, and support his wife, without needing to be in the room with the ill person.

In times like this it’s important to play to peoples strengths and respect their individual emotions too.

He might be the ideal person to provide practical support. Dog walking, lawn mowing, swinging by and making sure bins are out, laundry and ironing. Someone else might be the ideal person for emotional support and the deep and meaningful chats. Someone else might be the ideal person for the early morning stuff. Someone for the cant sleep at 3am. Someone for being the communicator so that’s not all on his wife. Someone else on square meals so people who are doing a lot of in person time still get properly fed.

Having the night owl dealing with 6am texts, or the cant cook making everyone dinner, or the frail one cutting grass is making life more difficult.

If he drives, he sounds like an ideal chauffeur and errand boy.

Sorry for your loss

I also lost my father in a painful way.

Everyone is so sure that the ill person won't know whether you or anyone is actually there.

How do we know that? Really?

I think there can often be an obsession about ‘doing the right thing’. DP’s family is like this and they can be extremely judgemental about people who struggle in situations around illness and death. I think we all should accept that everyone is built differently. We went to see our lovely next door neighbour of 25 years in the last few weeks of her life. She knew we were there and, although she was unable to talk, she managed to communicate that she was happy to see us. DP wanted to go back a couple of weeks later, even though we were told that she had deteriorated significantly. I didn’t want to go back and DP didn’t want to go alone. He still feels guilty that he didn’t see her again, whereas I am glad I didn’t because seeing her so close to the end of her life had already brought back distressing memories of my mum, my dad and my sister dying, all in similar circumstances. You can’t climb into another person’s head. You can only take their word for it that they have their own reasons for not doing something. And, respectfully, it’s nobody else’s business.

In my 50-odd years, I have visited many people in palliative care, been with some when they took their last breath, and helped to lay out deceased family members. My sister (younger by a couple of years), forced herself to be in the same room as our dad when he was in hospice care, as she felt it was important, but found it so distressing.

Age, gender, generation - none of these things matter; some people find death harder to deal with than others. Sometimes I wonder whether my ease is partly due to the fact that I have no visual memory, and so I can't 'see' someone when I think of them. I don't hold onto the image of them on their death bed...

I visited my uncle the day before he died. He was barely conscious and didn't open his eyes, couldn't speak... didn't acknowledge me at all during the visit, until I left and stood at the door and said goodbye...he had very little strength but I saw him try to acknowledge me...I told him to conserve his strength and that I saw him. So, yes, how do we really know?

Surely it depends on the situation? I visited a friend, if I hadn't I wouldn't have seen her again. She was conscious, mobile, completely with it - she was still using her mobile and had a laptop and was in contact with loads of people - and we had a chat about old times and our children. She was in the hospice for pain management, not because death was imminent at that point.

YANBU that a grown man should be able to put his big boy pants on and tolerate some discomfort for the sake of a dying relative.

YABU if you push it in this case as your DB wont know.

Sorry for your situation, it must be very hard for you.

YABU

I chose not to visit my grandmother in the last year of her life. She would have had no clue who I was, zero recollection of my visiting and I preferred to remember her as she was.

Yes, absolutely. His wife is there every day, his brother takes over regularly for a few days so she can have a break, and he has a daughter who I assume visits fairly regularly.

I generally only saw him at Christmas and Easter, so not a very close relative but a well loved one.

At 22 it's definitely up to your nephew, but it sounds as though his parents have told him what he should do (ie not go). Obviously they're trying to be kind but from experience, it doesn't always help in the long run. My brother did similar with his kids when our mother was towards the end of her life (Alzheimer's). His kids were in their early twenties too and were told not to see her for the same reason, so to just remember her how she was. That meant they didn't see their grandmother for the two years up to her death. I didn't say anything but it did rankle - Mum still had moments of lucidity and would have gained from their visits. Also their Grandfather needed support and not visiting Mum meant they didn't see him either. I took a different tack with my kids so told them it was their choice and totally fine not to see her if they found it upsetting but that she was still Grannie, just very ill. Both decided to keep visiting - they were teenagers back then so early twenties now. We were chatting about it not long ago. My DD has a precious memory of holding my mum's hand towards the very end and Grannie squeezing it back. My son just said she always loved a hug - even when she didn't know him, he could tell it was helping her. He was pleased to be able to give those few moments to her. In contrast, both my niece and nephew have struggled with grief. My nephew in particular feels he didn't have chance to say goodbye and feels guilty. He talks to my DD about it a fair bit. She's told him not to feel guilty, but it's obviously quite a thing for him as he's recently mentioned it to me now too. He says he can't talk to his parents about it. It is a tricky call, but it's definitely your nephew's call to make, not yours or his parents. He might regret it if he doesn't go though. I hope you're okay. It must be tough for you. I hope your brother's as comfortable as he can be.

I do still feel there would be value in the family coming together to support his wife and show they care.

This is the first time you've mentioned his wife.
I'd say supporting his wife is the most relevant reason to consider coming.

Either to give her a respite if she is trying (for someone) to be there as much as possible, or come to a short visit and go for a walk with her if she would be inclined to go.

However, while the uncle doesn't care, she cares very much, so the visit to show their support to her might need to be orchestrated that the nephew would clearly understand who is he supporting.

Edit:typo

That's what I was getting at in my earlier post, it's a chance for the wider family to pull together.

I do disagree with those saying that there is no point as my brother will not be aware. I do still feel there would be value in the family coming together to support his wife and show they care

Though I'm another who'd say it's up to your nephew I very much get the point of that second sentence, but surely he doesn't need to be with his sadly dying uncle in order to show care and support?

If he wanted nothing at all to do with any of them that would be very different, but could he do something like cooking a meal, walking tthe dog or whatever while they're at the hospital so as to make their load a little lighter?

Caring can take many forms and doesn't necessarily have to involve a traditional deathbed scene ...

No doubt LOADS would disagree with this, but here goes. All this I can't deal with death and dying and illness is really not something a functioning adult should do. I don't know when people started opting out of adulthood. You grow up and you just get on with things that aren't very pleasant. People who opt out of this for REASONS just put the burden on others, but aren't honest enough to say so.

I’m very sorry for what you’re going through. I agree with other posters on here, you can’t determine someone else’s feelings in this situation. It may seem upsetting to you that they don’t want to visit but you can’t control others.

My DM died last year. She was unconscious before she died.
I phoned my DB to explain she was dying, he told me he wasn’t coming as it was too difficult.

I texted the DS’s- both in their 20s and though it was 11 at night, the younger immediately said he’d get an Uber and come.
they both arrived early the next morning and we went to h the hospital together.
After she died we went out for a bite to eat and DS cooked a meal for us to eat together that evening.
it was obviously upsetting and unpleasant but we were there and got through it together as a family.

This must be very difficult. You said if your brother was aware, he would want his nephew to visit. Do you think he would still want that, even if he know how distressful his nephew would find it? In his shoes, I wouldn't. Of course I would want family to visit but not if it was going to distress them to that level.

Since when was watching your uncle die just part of adulthood.

You talk about it like it’s just putting a wash on, or nipping down the shop for a pint of milk.