Help me make a hard decision - let son see GF or not?

[DaysofHoney]

My poor dad is fast approaching end of life, I think. He’s post stage 4 cancer treatment (jaw/sinus) and he is ravaged.

He has had a very close relationship with my son, 11.5trs old, and DS very much wants to see his grandfather (we live overseas and on our last visit in March we spent the day with him and were able to communicate - the deterioration is huge). For context, DS is very aware of his condition, the cancer, the surgery he had, even came to a couple of radiotherapy visits and has seen him in hospital before too. But this current picture is very different. He is a shell.

DF looks gaunt, he’s bed bound, he cannot speak (surgery and radiotherapy have left him non verbal though he tries/mumbles), he has a horrendous eye infection which has left one side of his face red, sunken, and it’s all rather ghoulish.

My DS is a mature but sensitive boy, he adores his GF, and I do not know what to do for the best - let him see his GF or shelter him from the grim reality? I don’t want to traumatise him in either way, by allowing him to come or not allowing it. I’m stumped and would appreciate any advice anyone has.

thanks so much

I didn’t want to read and run 💐
Only you know how your DS will cope.
I went to see my dear uncle, in hospital, when I was 11/12, he had cancer. It affected me for many years and meant I was unable to visit my GF in hospital when I should have. It took me until my FiL was having treatment and I was the only one available, in my 40s, to get over this.
Everyone is different.

I would honestly shelter him from this. I’m a medic so a realist and I don’t think this is a good memory for your son.

Perhaps he could read something/ do a video message for your father delivered by someone who could feed back that GF loved it.

Maybe tell your son that GF is exhausted by visitors but loves him very much.

Sorry to hear that your dad is approaching end of life. What a tough decision OP. Have you shared the full reality with your son or does he think his GF is the same as last time he saw him (I know you’ve kept him in the picture but how much)?

I would personally dissuade him from seeing his GF like this. The gaunt, dying image will be your son's abiding memory of him and will have a lasting impact on many levels. I was persuaded not to see my dad for similar reasons, although I had visited him before he got to the worst stage. I was 14 at the time and didn't understand but now I'm grateful that the adults around me made that decision.

I think this is one of the few cases where I would bend the truth. Tell him your DF is very ill now and the hospital are only allowing adult next of kin to visit. The idea of your son recording a message for him is a lovely one (or making and writing a card?)

Thank you all for your swift replies and for your advice which is so appreciated. I wasn’t close to my grandparents and they passed when I was very young so I have no experience to draw on here.

The mother in me would want to shelter him but in my heart I wonder whether not seeing him would make things worse (would he imagine something worse, feel so very sad that he didn’t get chance to say goodbye or that we kept that from him)?

I completely understand your dilemma. It’s not quite the same but I remember visiting my mum in hospital when I was a child. I was younger than your son but remember being frightened (she had had a serious throat operation including tracheostomy and couldn’t speak). I wish the adults had prepared me better for what I was going to see.

I think if you decide to have your son visit his GF (and I can understand why you and he might want him to), just to prepare him with honesty for how it will be and let him know that his GF can hear him, even if he can’t communicate. Such a difficult time for you ❤️

I think this is one of those things where you will feel guilty one way or the other, you can only do what you think is right, but I tend to go with the protect him from seeing the worst, better to remember his GF as he was last time your DS saw him.

My son is a little bit older and we've just been through his GF dying over a very prolonged period. For most of this DS didnt want to go and visit- to be honest I found it upsetting myself too.

When DF actually got to his end of life I went in to see him. He wasn't recognising anyone and latterly got put on morphine.

DS was at a weekend activity that he'd been looking forward to for ages and I didnt want to cancel it to make him visit.

He did say he felt bad for not seeing grandpa but I explained he was very ill and wasn't really aware of his surroundings anyway.

I dont think there's a right or wrong answer to this. Id definitely take your son's feelings on board though. I think a recording is a lovely idea too.

I think you should just be brutally honest with your son and say that you would prefer him to remember his grandad as he was and that grandad knows he loves him very much .💐

I think this is good advice. If you "blame" it on the hospital, it takes the decision completely out of your son's hands and might take away any sense of guilt he may feel, either now or in the future, about not insisting to be allowed to see his GF. If you can say to him "it's not my choice, the hospital have said no" then that might make it easier for him to accept.

It's a really, really hard decision and you can only make your best guess. Whatever you decide, it will be because you believe it's the best thing for your child.

I'm sorry you're going through such a difficult time ❤️

Something else to consider, would your DF want his Grandson to see him the way he is now?

I know when my Dad was ill, he told us that he didn't want my girls to see him if he became really poorly looking and he wanted them to remember him as he was the last time they saw him.

Other than that, if you think your DF would want to see your DS then I would be inclined to talk to him. Tell him how he looks now and exactly what to expect when he see's him and ask him if he would rather remember him how he was or see him as he is now. Remind him that once he has seen him, he can't 'unsee it' and the memory will stay with him.

I think if you prepare him well it should be fine. At the end of the day, the person is still the same person, it is still his GF, its just that he looks different now, so make sure you remind him of that too.

I am sorry you are going through this. I went through similar not long ago when my DF passed away. These are difficult choices to make.

It sounds important to him to see his grandpa. I would try to explain to him that he looks very different, but I would let him see him if he still wants to. I wasn’t allowed to see my grandparents when they were ill, and it affected me very badly to be excluded from their deaths.

He should decide based on an honest description of how his grandfather’s appearance is now.

I would keep him away. Who knows what other cancer might crop up in friends or family over time and the image of his GF now might taint his future response, fears and ability to cope with their diagnosis.
That sounds very negative, but I don’t think it’s helpful for him at his age to see a particularly harrowing example of what cancer can potentially do to people.

It's not the quite same but when my DM was in intensive care after a huge my young cousin who 10 was desperate to see her. We started off by sending her a photo so she could see that DM was surrounded by machinery and tubes, then we sent her a video where DM smiled and waved at the camera and mouthed hello to her and sent her that.

So before she came to visit her mum was able to show her exactly how DM looked and she was completely prepared for the lack of conversation and was able to sit and hold her hand and chat to her.

I remember my Grandad in the hospice and my nan in hospital within a year of each other. I was a little older and may have said I wanted to go both times but I wasn’t prepared for seeing them like that and it really affected my memories of them.

I think the hospital restrictions are the best approach too. So it’s not your son’s decision to feel guilty about not choosing to see him. But I wouldn’t take him.

Thank you to those who have shared how experiences like this affected how you handled other family illness. That’s been a bit of a realisation for me - I’ve always felt I avoided watching my mum’s end of life and wished I’d spent more time with her but now I can look back on my teenage self with more compassion.

My son who was 10 at the time saw his grandad right up until the day before he died but he still looked like the grandad he knew. He then asked to see him in the undertakers. My gut reaction was absolutely not but he was adamant he needed to see him. In the end he did. Ten years later he is still glad he saw him at the end. It’s not an easy decision but you know your son best and through discussion with him will come to a decision that’s right for you all. There’s no right answer.

I don't know. It could ultimately be comforting to have a short visit to say goodbye but I also fully understand the opposite perspective. If in doubt I would go with doing a specially recorded message as suggested above. Could be comforting for both your son and his grandad. Also a written card to read out. You could do both separately if you are staying a couple of days. Don't bring the full truth back to ds if grandad is too ill to hear/ understand the message. Tell ds that grandad understood and loved his message. He wants you to know he is really happy you sent it and he sends his love. ♥️

My GF died when I was 6 and as I am old, at the time children were not allowed to visit hospitals. I was granted special permission by the matron to see him as he was going to die. However my older cousins had spoken about the patient next to him having had his leg amputated and my 6 year old brain had conjured up gruesome images so I was terrified and refused to go in. I regret it to this day and it imbued in me a deep fear of hospitals, medics, dying and illness for much of my early life.

I just wanted to agree with PPs who advise speaking openly with your son about what they would find GF to look like if they visited and trusting your boy to his own decision. Support him going forward whatever his decision as I’m sure you will. I’m so sorry you are all going through this and I send you much sympathy for the time ahead.

I think the PPs who have said, prepare him very well and then let him decide, are on the right track.
One other thing - one day, he might be making a similar decision about you and your grandchildren, and this experience, one way or the other, will be helping to guide him. So if you can explain your decision in appropriate terms to him it will be helpful in itself (e.g. "Grandad looks very different now, he's very ill, what I am worried about is that you will be so upset at seeing him that he will be upset at you being upset and it will do nobody any good.")

Thank you to everyone who took the time to respond - your advice has been so valuable. We told DS yesterday that GF doesn’t have long left. Initially he wanted to come but when I explained how different he is, he said perhaps he’d prefer to remember him as he was. He has written a card and made a video message - not goodbyes, but I miss you and I love you. So very very sad.

Well done to you for explaining things so well to your DS and allowing him full insight into everything and allowing him to then make his own choice.

Such a sad and awful time for everyone and its so hard to know whether decisions we make are the right ones. All I know is that you make the decisions that you feel are right at the time.

Be prepared for him maybe to change his mind.

Not the exact same thing but when my DF passed away earlier this year we had a choice whether or not to see him in the chapel of rest. I have two young adult DD's and neither of them had done this kind of thing before. I told them how it would be and how he would look and warned them they couldn't 'unsee' it when they had seen him. Then let them make their own choices. Both chose to see him. One was massively glad she did, and got something positive from it and the other wished she hadn't done it and had just remembered him as he was before he died. But at the same time she felt okay with her decision because if she hadn't then she would always have been left with a 'should I have?' hanging over her, which I think, for her, would have been worse.

There are no right or wrong answers and I am just sorry you are having to even make these choices and decisions.

Sending hugs to you and your family xx

I think you did the right think. I also didn’t let my (older) children see their grandmother as she was dying. The change in her isn’t what I wanted their memories of her to be.

The shell she became in her last days was scary to me as an adult. No platelets, so every tiny cut or chapped lip bled constantly No child should have to see a loved one in that situation.

My cousins were in their late teens and twenties when our Nan was dying of cancer and both (sensitive types) were very shocked and upset at her appearance. She looked like a moving corpse propped up in a bed, that’s the only way I can describe her.
I would probably try and shelter him from this at that age.