My brother is dying, he doesn't want to tell his only daughter

[Lilmie]

My brother isn't particularly old, just 65. He has one daughter, she lives abroad and is 25. She was a much wished for child, my brother and his wife struggles immensely, refused fertility help on religious grounds and when she arrived she became everything to them. They had a nasty split, her mother was mentally unwell, she took his daughter back to her home country, he wasn't a lazy dad, he genuinely believed her mother would be happier at home and his daughter would be happier with a present and happy mum but soon after she moved her parents passed, then 6 years ago she took her own life, by this point his daughter was in another country from both of them, at university, where she has stayed since. He is fiercely protective of his daughter, visits as much as he can.

In late November he was diagnosed with cancer, terminal. He has refused treatment, he doesn't want the fuss of it and he won't be convinced not by us anyway. He is still relatively well in himself right now which I think may be why he is refusing treatment, nausea and fatigue but little else, but was told months at most without treatment.

Now his daughter is visiting over the new year, she is newly engaged, we are having a big family party. He doesn't want to tell her, not now, not before it's his final days. His argument is that it won't do anything to soothe grief, only start it earlier. He doesn't want her to worry, try to move back or panic.

I'm feeling very morally confused by it, on one hand I believe its his right to decide, on the other I don't want to lie to her, he plans to pass any illness off as feeling unwell, maybe the flu. He is quite a rigid and traditional man, he writes to her weekly, calls her but has no interest in a smart phone, so never FaceTimes. He was a tradesmen so email and phone calls were all his career asked of him, so she truly has no idea he is unwell. I also have a silent hope she might be the one person who could convince him into treatment, especially if she sold it as being around long enough to see her married, but I al think this is why he doesn't want her to know, or at least partially.

AIBU to want to tell her? I've spoke to him, he won't give me permission to so it would be against his will, which isn't something I want to do, but somewhat feel it may be necessary.

Recovering from an unexpected, sudden bereavement is utterly devastating imo, and so much harder than when you have had chance to mentally prepare. I feel the daughter would benefit from having time to know she is about to lose her dad. She already lost her mum with no prior warning at all. It is kinder to the daughter not to subject her to the unexpected death of a second parent. Could you make this point to your brother?

His logic that the grief starts earlier is flawed. Preparatory grief work is important. You wouldn’t drop a person into very late stage contractions without the foregoing built up.

How to achieve this is the tricky point. Bearing in mind the sudden, unexpected death of her mother, it seems unkind to subject her to a similar experience.

If he is immovable , as others have said, you could ‘accidentally on purpose’ drop some hints or let it slip?

The problem here is that, although understandable, some people are giving advice based on their own personal experiences. And it’s clear that if put together, these experiences are contradictory.

So you can’t generalise what to do from one particular PP’s experience, nor is it fair to tell the OP that she is right or wrong based on a single subjective experience, for the same reason.

It could be that the brother doesn’t know how to handle telling his daughter and doesn’t want to have to do it himself, or that he doesn’t know what to say. Who knows? As someone else has suggested, it could be that telling his daughter makes it real and he doesn’t know how to cope with that, which means that he also doesn’t want to prepare himself.

The other point is that what he feels now might change as he becomes very ill and that might be sooner than later, and sooner than he is expecting.

Perhaps the only way is to inch forward with the strategies that have been suggested.

I think it's his decision and I don't agree that she has a right to know before he wants her to. He's been told that he's dying and the only thing he has any meaningful control over is who he tells and when. It sounds like it is very important to him that his relationship with his daughter does not change from what it currently is, to one that is completely dominated by his illness and her feelings about it. If I were in your position I would be thinking now about how to support her after his death to understand how important that was to him in his final days.

He is trying to have some control in the most difficult of situations. I think all you can do is support him an hope that he feels he can tell her. Perhaps sending them for a meal or evening together and maybe he will be able to talk to her then?

Or at least ask him to write letters to explain it all to her. If he’s too far gone by the time she finds out, he might not get today all the things he wants to.

My dad did this to me with the help of his new wife. I finally found out when he was in hospital and given hours live. I will never get over the handling of it all and that final call by her, all cheery telling me I need to come and see him. I still resent her to this day.

Yes, I’d tell her. As his only child, she has a right to know and if she finds out you kept this information from her, she’s likely to cut you off completely after he’s gone.

If you’re not bothered about having a relationship with her in the future, then don’t tell her.

This totally. None of this is your choice or your decision to make. If you can't keep quiet then stay away. I understand from personal experience how hard this must be for you but its his choice not yours. Please do not allow yourself to be swayed by your hope that she could get him to have treatment, that's his decision and not yours either.

Why resent her? She did what he wanted.

well, I disagree. Personal agency and its consequences are one of the unbreakable tenets of my belief system. Its never right to think that one adult has the right to go against another's choice unless its in a situation like stopping someone killing someone else. Additionally in this situation, the daughter might be furious that you had broken her father's right to personal privacy and might never trst the OP again.

Really difficult one OP because although I think she should know it does need to come from her Dad and be his decision to tell her. Especially if she lives abroad, she may want to spend more time here with him while she can.

Unfortunately I think you can only speak to him again and if he's still refusing you'll have to find a way to accept that. If his daughter does get upset later down the line you can only say you were respecting his wishes although you didn't necessarily agree with them.

This is a very difficult one, I lost my DH in May, he only got ill 3 months before he died and 6 weeks after being diagnosed with a very rare agressive blood cancer called myeloid sarcoma. He never told my DD and I he was terminal and I cannot believe he wasn't told that by the doctors. I just think he couldn't bring himself to tell us. Obviously I did my research and realised there was a very strong chance we would lose him, but he deflected/changed the subject and wouldn't discuss it. His way of coping I guess. I found I was able to understand and accept his reasoning after he died, he'd never liked difficult conversations and was a natural optimist.

I would continue to encourage him to tell her, if he can't face telling her in person perhaps he should tell her in a letter. I think you can't say anything at this stage but when the end is close then you can explain he didn't want her to know earlier.

There’s no way his GP would even entertain having such a discussion with the OP and nor should they.

You have to respect his wishes. He isn’t stealing time from her. His argument that she will waste his last few days upset and panicking is fair enough, from his view. You can be there for his DD in the aftermath and explain why you had to honour her dying fathers wishes to let their last moments together be happy.

You don’t have to like it, but to betray him on his death bed would be pretty diabolical.

I agree with this and think this is the most sensible response so far (I realise I fell into @HoppityBun observations of sharing my experience and not offering advice).

I’m so sorry, such sad news. I think you and her Dad should let her enjoy the engagement party and then tell her afterwards. A PP made a good point about her mother’s death being sudden. She might appreciate the time to prepare for her Dad’s death. Maybe speak to him again and see if this angle resonates with him. My Dad is old school too, and doesn’t always take things on board straight away. But sometimes he mulls things over and comes round. Best of luck.

This is your brothers illness and I think he has the right to decide when to disclose and to whom.
As someone who was told my parent was terminally ill, I am inclined to agree with his reasoning. It really didn't help at all to have those extra weeks of knowing. It was an incredibly sad and distressing period. Yes, we did some things 'for the last time', but they were not positive experiences, as they were too overshadowed by what we knew was to come.
I can well understand why he wants to have his DD around him in her happiness and for this time together not to be marred by sadness.
I think your position is hard because you feel you're keeping something she has a right to know. However, I think you have to remember that you're not keeping it, as its not yours to keep. You're simply aware of it's existence. I think you need to respect your brothers wishes.

You may want to let him know that this is, amongst other things, exactly what some of these charities do. If he doesn't engage with charities or understand the pathways for terminal illness, he may end up in A&E in resuscitation or similar and nit having the peaceful death he imagines.

However I'd respect his wishes re his DD. He has been very clear about it and so I don't think you should go against it

I was this daughter. Please try to get him to tell her. My dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer and died a month later. He told me he had cancer, but never that he was dying. One day he seemed normal, then he drove himself to hospital, and was unconscious within hours and died the next morning.

I never got to say goodbye or have any of the conversations I would have had if I knew he wasn’t going to live much longer. It made things harder, not easier. The only person it was easier for was him, which is fair enough I suppose, but it’s a bit shit to run away from your responsibilities to your child just because it’s hard.

I have cancer myself now. My children (much younger than I was, 6 & 11 vs 18) were told within days of my diagnosis and have weathered it fine. They were much less freaked out than I was.

They will not, they cannot even discuss him without his consent.

What a horrendous situation. I think you need to try to bring your brother to his senses. Losing a parent to suicide is a terrible thing to live with. To then lose your other parent prematurely is an awful thing for a young person to deal with. Your brother’s decision is that he will effectively leave his daughter to deal with this alone. He could chose to be alongside her as she comes to terms with losing him, but instead he is choosing to remove all the support he could give her and leave her to it. He’s also stopping you being able to offer support (even if you are not close, as her father’s sister she might appreciate your support dealing with the loss of her remaining parent.)

Many of the replies you’ve had give advice which might be fine if the daughter had not already lost her mother to suicide. But sadly she has, and this does change the situation.

He needs to step up as the parent of an already traumatised young person and be there with her, and I think you need to spell this out to him.

Just to clarify, I imagine your brother’s decision is probably made with the best of intentions, believing this will be easiest for his daughter, but he’s very wrong and I think the best thing you can do is try to help him see this and face reality alongside his daughter.

I have been the daughter in this situation and five years later, I’m still dealing with the aftermath of it all. I’m so angry at my Dad for what happened and how it was handled, it’s tarnished my memory of him. What makes it worse was his mother did the same to him and he never got over it. He knew how it felt and chose to do it to us! I’m also angry at my stepmother for hiding how bad things were too and we no longer speak.

My sister and I knew he had cancer but not that he was dying. We found out 3 days before and by that time the cancer had spread to his brain so we couldn’t even have ‘proper’ time with him as he was so out of it. Bearing in mind only a few days before we were having normal phone calls and FaceTimes with him and acting like everything was normal as it was throughout Covid. We were completely blindsided.

I will never get over how things were handled and would never do the same to my children. Yes, cancer and illness is not nice for your children to deal with but honesty is everything in situations like this.

You’re in a very difficult situation but my heart goes out to his daughter if she’s left completely unaware.

Nowhere in my post did I state what you are suggesting. I can’t see what I have written that you are disagreeing with. Nothing you have written suggests that it is right to generalise from individual experiences, which is what I was saying.

I think it’s his decision and that you shouldn’t interfere, especially as you aren’t particularly close to him. If you want to help, commit to supporting your niece after he has passed away.

They can’t discuss it with the op without permission either. They can listen to her but not comment