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You can say no to the trips.

mrsconn23mrsconn23 member
Knottie Warrior 10000 Comments 500 Love Its First Answer
in Wedding Woes

Dear Prudence,

My great grandmother has been dying. For a while. She is nearly a hundred, but her children are fighting tooth and nail not to let her go. I am the only one that lives nearby my great aunt and, with a flexible work schedule, everyone expects me to be at her beck and call when it comes to visits. It is nearly six hours each way when my great aunt wants to visit her mother. She has no money, so I can’t even ask for her to pay for gas. She is constantly tormented by the reality of her mother dying and her not being there, so she just breaks down every trip. And it is breaking me.

My grandmother died in a car accident when my father was small so I never knew her, and my father suffered a very brutal fight with cancer that killed him long before he actually died. My great grandmother has lived a long and full life and has been miserable since my great grandfather died two years ago. She wants to die. Peacefully and quickly. And her children will not let her. I don’t have the emotional bandwidth to deal with this anymore. I am afraid I am going to snap and say something very ugly to my great aunt sooner rather than later. She doesn’t deserve that. But neither do I deserve this. Help.

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Re: You can say no to the trips.

  • short+sassyshort+sassy member
    Knottie Warrior 10000 Comments 500 Love Its 5 Answers
    The LW should set boundaries on when/how often they will drive their great aunt.  If other family members don't like it, then they can bring their own selves down or send Great Aunt some bus fare money.

    I wonder if it is possible for the great aunt to move closer to her mother.  Or have the mother move to a closer facility.  Why is great grandmother a 6+ hour drive away from everyone?

    But as to the LW wanting people to respect the great grandmother's (GG) wishes more, I think the best way to do that is keep gently reminding people that "as much as they will all miss GG when she's gone, GG is ready to go now and her wishes are the most important."

    There's a little of this going on in my life.  My grandmother is in her late 90s.  She has wanted to die for a long time.  It really upsets my mom when she says that and I know if it were up to my mom, she would want her to live for as long as possible.  Whereas I hope my grandmother passes on peacefully very soon because that is what she wants.  I don't phrase it that way to my mom.  But I say something similar to my above paragraph.
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  • flantasticflantastic member
    Knottie Warrior 2500 Comments 500 Love Its 5 Answers
    The "beck and call" thing made me think LW was supposed to drop everything to help the great-grandmother. That in and of itself would be a hard situation and likely an unreasonable expectation on LW.

    Then it was actually that LW was supposed to drop everything to be a long-distance chauffeur to a different relative who only thinks she's being helpful to the great-grandmother.

    "I am not going to be able to drive you. I have other commitments [to myself and my own sanity]. If you and your siblings believe someone needs to be there for her right now, please sort it out amongst yourselves whether they will send you bus fare or visit themselves."
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