My mother is dying

[pippy longstocking]

hey darling

 

really glad yo uhad a good day and your hea dis out the bottle ...yes and empty stomach and boooze aint

to sweet ( ha been there many many times )

 

so mum at home ..much nicer for her ..do yo live near her ? do you have brothers and sisters to help out ?

 

how is she darling , is she bed bound now ?

[nbr]

No siblings, I am their only child (adopted).

We live fairly close, about 15 min away.

My wife really was wonderful last night/yesterday.

-nbr

[Huntress0527]

I'm sorry to hear about your mom. I've been following your story loosely. When it rains it pours it seems. Cherish the time with your mom and take care of your health.

[nbr]

Well, my boss has been great. He's basically given me all the time off I need, both for my mom and for my marriage.

I'm trying to work from home today, to at least tread water with my work duties.

-nbr

[becomingkate]

I'm so sorry to hear about your mum, nbr!

 

Have you thought about having Thanksgiving/Christmas early?

 

When my hubby was terminally ill, we knew he wouldn't make it to certain celebrations, so we staged them early. We put up a tree, had a turkey dinner and gave out gifts, and the family gathered around in support.

 

It helped me somewhat, keeping busy and planning things so that my mind wouldn't get wrapped up in what was to come. Also, it was bittersweet watching the family as they spent their time with him, and said their good byes, but it brought my husband some peace as well.

 

Peace and light! and *hugs*

[nbr]

I thought about it, but she's so optimistic right now that I don't want to do that, she's very sensitive to the mortality thing, and I think if I tried to pull in holidays right now it may be defeatest. I will do it if she starts turning downward too much more though. She makes fused glass art pieces and wants some time with my son to work on some projects with him. I'm going to talk to his teacher about getting his class work to take home and taking him out of school for a few days so he can do this with her. Can't on the weekends because Chemo is Fridays and she's toxic for 48 hours after the treatment. Not a big deal for my dad, because he's old already, but for a young child it can really interfere with cell growth and development.

He loves the cut/fused glass stuff grandma makes, and making some jewelry pieces with her to build a strong positive final memory is waaaay more important than a week or two of school I'm pretty sure his teacher will agree.

 

As long as she's focused on that, it will keep her spirits up.

 

If she's looking "ok" at Thanksgiving, then I think I'll bow out of other family invites and we'll go to their house for Thanksgiving. I'll prep and cook everything at my house, then bring it over ready to serve (maybe with a quick blast in the oven to re-heat). It will be just my parents and my wife and the kids and I. Any other family that wants to be upset about it can go stuff it, though I think I only have one family member who isn't "gracious" enough to be understanding about that.

 

All my siblings (yes I said I was an only child, I'm adopted) are being super supportive. My sister is due on the 27th (though I'll lay money on her delivering early), and is terrified of labor and delivery, is afraid that her hubby won't be up to the task of being coach, and I'm the only brother she wants around, "just in case". I hope she doesn't go into labor while my mom's having a crisis or while our mother is out of town.

 

-nbr

 

 

Ok, that was convoluted so here's the map:

Mom == adopted mom, the sick one.

mother == bio mom, had me, then got married to another guy few years later, had 5 more (4 boys, 1 girl), found them 10 years ago, both families are really close, usually do Thanksgiving and Christmas parties all together. Best blessing an adopted kid could have ever asked for right there.

[pippy longstocking]

yes sorry how could I forget your adopted cos as I too am adopted ..I always meant to tell you that story nbr ..I will maybe crash your thread and have a gab ...

 

oh now I can just see you with all you have going on been birth partner as well ..oh darling ...your a little saint.

 

I love love love the idea about your lad staying off school a while and doing extra with your mum ...thats just fantastic and making something to keep forever in the process ...just fab fab fab

 

you are doing fantastic nbr ....god I am so proud of you ..

[nbr]

The opportunity to be a birthing partner for my sister is a welcome reprieve from the negative stuff. I don't know that she'll need me, but I'm there if she does.

 

you go ahead and crash the thread if you want I've done it before.

-nbr

[pippy longstocking]

ahh bless ya ..well I will if its not too disrespectful to your mums thread ...give you sommat to read darling man if nothing

else .

 

I found my birth father when I was 26 , my own father has just died of lung cancer . He had met his wife when my birth mother was still carrying me and later went on to marry her and are still together now . It was apparent later on that birth mother had always carried a torch for him , but more of that in a min.

 

so I went to his house , met him and his wife ...and I can honestly say it WAS NOT like the oprah winfrey show where everyone is hugging and crying ..he was a stranger to me. I told him I could never call him dad , but we can be friends. That is where the relationship started ....I got on with him and his wife and all was well.

 

when I became pregnant with emily in my early 30's I asked him and his wife what they wanted my baby to call them ...they had never had children so I was, in essence, his only child . I said even though I couldn't call him dad I would not deprive him and his wife of a grandchild and if they wanted to be called grandad and grandma thats fine with me ...oh they loved it and thats what we settled on .

 

I hadnt found my birth mother at this time ...

 

when emily was 15 months old , it became apparant that her father was a nutter !!! lets make this story short and just say the police and victim support helped me move to a new city to start our lives again .

 

I kept in touch with birth father just the same as I did my own mum and friends , we had phone calls , when I went back home I would see them just as I saw everyone else . I stayed in the new city for 5 years then decided to move back home .

It was at this point that it became apparent that something was wrong between me and birth father and his wife.

emily was 6 by now ( maybe 7) , they didnt come round when I got back , they missed Easter for the first time ever and I had no idea what was wrong . I invited birth father round to get to the bottom of it all , he was none committal at that point and kind of made out that it was me making a fuss and then accused me of asking him round to ask for money !!!!!! nbr I never asked him for a penny ....not a penny ever . It was very very odd.(or should that be dime ..not penny hahah)

 

he said he needed to go back and have a chat with his wife about it all ..!!!!

 

two weeks later he came back to my house ..and said "you know what lesley , well me and judith have decided we dont want to be grandparents anymore , thats what the problem is "

 

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

 

I mean seriously ..I just sat open mouthed nbr , as he went on to say " so would you get emily to call us by our names and not grandad and grandma "

 

I told him to get the feck out of my house , that you dont pick and choose when you want to be a grandparent ...I am disgusted to this day ...he told me to please contact him ...I have never spoken to him from that day .

 

around the same time I finally found birth mother ..she is just a right case ..and it is evident through one thing and another that the bi polar travelled through her genetics .

oh she cried down the phone tellng me how she bathed me in pears soap and knit matinee jackets for me but just couldnt keep me ..then went onto tell me about the other 4 kids she could keep ( way to make me feel special hahahaha) She said she had been looking for me for years ( lies ...I have a national insurance number and vote , its not that hard) to tell me I must go to see my gp because all the women have died of breast cancer and that too is genetic . ..at that time she had cancer .

that was call number one ..we had one more call where she had had the biggest personailty transplant I have ever known ( very in keeping with bi polar , just that I didnt know at that time) I told her what had happened with birth father , and she actually said " well its you , thats why , he is ok , its you the way you are thats why he has been like that "

 

that was the second and last time I EVER spoke to her .

 

both of them sicken me nbr ..but what sickens me even more is they both gave me away ...and I gave them the chance to reject me a second time , but took my little girl down as well .

 

a few months after this was when emilys father told me "she was mine when she was born , now she isnt feck off and never call me again"

 

then my live in partner left me

 

hhahahaha ( he was an alcoholic he did a favour to be honest ) ..

 

but I came out of that a bit of a mess , and totally convinced there was something wrong with me and emily

for all of those people to do that within months of each other.

 

this is how I ended up here in the city I am in now ..to start again ...again !!

 

so thats my sorry tale nbr .

 

 

and here we are on ena with broken hearts , the bull crap never ends does it mate ?

 

 

anyway let me know how things are and big love to you and mum xxxxxx

[nbr]

Wow...

I am sad about your story and even a bit guilty (survivors guilt?) Star...

 

My story, which I think I've told you before, but I may as well share with the world, is almost the polar opposite.

I too am my fathers only child, but I think that may be the only thing in common

 

I was put up for adoption before I was born. My mother had picked my mom and dad because they were older, couldn't have children, were of the same faith, and financially secure. She thought she gave me a better life than she ever could had she kept me.

 

I don't remember when I found out I was adopted, I just know it was not a family secret, but I have been told I cried for over a week solid. I must have simply blocked that out forever. I have scattered memories that go back to being two years old. Granted they are fragments, but when I asked my mom and dad they said I was two when some of the events took place; so the trauma must have been blotted out.

 

I always wanted to find my birth parents, but was always afraid of hurting my mom and dad by doing so. My dad and I had problems, but my mom was always there for me, and I didn't want her hurt, so I waited. When I finally made the decision to find my birth mother and actually told my mom, she handed me a large envelope. It was all my adoption records, case worker names and ID numbers. Everything I needed. I was 19, and my Wife and I had already been dating for 3 years. I did some records searches, my mom went with me to sign away her rights to secrecy about names in the official files (her copy was redacted). My mother apparently had signed away the secrecy rights on the day she gave me up, just so I *could* find her. I sat on it.

 

Life goes on, and unbeknownst to me, my wonderful girlfriend had continued the search. She had found a marriage certificate for my mother, and matched the signatures, so we knew her new married name, she found birth certificates for some of my siblings, again matching signatures. On mothers day, when I was 25, I finally got the courage to mail a letter, really just a mothers day card. My GF (now engaged), still the same amazing woman from when I was 16, wrote a letter, and mailed it the same day. In the letter she explained my quest, my reservations, and made a plea to at least meet with me one time, for one meeting was all I was daring to hope for.

 

I was fearful. Fearful of rejection, fearful of hurting my mom, fearful of hurting this woman I never knew, what if she hadn't told her husband about me? What if my selfish act of trying to find her destroyed her marriage?

 

I was driving to the store when my phone rang. It was her. We met at a restaurant that day, my mother, my finance, her husband, and me. I had suggested a nice steakhouse near their place. Her hubby was a vegetarian, but it was no matter, for none of us ever ate a thing. Three hours later, and many refills of water I gave the waiter a $20 tip for taking his table and buying nothing. We went to go meet my grandparents, who lived in the same town.

 

I'll take a detour here. My Uncle's wife is one of those people who's rather brash. I like her, but she can say things that will ruffle feathers if you let her. well she was over at her in-law's house with my uncle on the day my mother told them I found her. She told her parents "I have some really big news" to which my aunt-in-law asked "what? you're pregnant again?". Apparently my mother answered "kinda".

 

So we head over to my grandparents house, there are many tears of joy and we talk for another hour or two, I really don't know, time just sort of went away. Through this my mothers husband (who did know about me by the way, and has always made me feel like one of his own) was fretting openly about how to tell the kids. I made an off hand comment about loving to see the looks on their faces... his answer? "Sure, why not, you've missed enough already!", so he called home, told the 4 siblings still living at home to find their oldest brother, and stay home, it was important, he'd be over soon. Bio-step-dad (?what do I call him?) called oldest brothers house, friends, anyone he could think of telling him to get home ASAP.

 

Then we left for their place.

 

mother, father, me, then fiance walked into the house, 4 younger siblings sitting on the couch wonder what's going on.

 

"Guys, this is NBR, and his fiance [name]. He is your older brother."

 

*silence*

complete and utter shock, broken by the second youngest finally bursting out that mother had lied [by omission] to them.

Well, as things went on we all got to talking, and it became clear that I was one of them already. About this time the oldest came running in asking what happened, who died, and then looking right at me, who the fock are you? There was snickers from the other siblings, and the same one who had burst out earlier, said: "you're not the oldest any more"

 

Fast forward some more and the two oldest are more like best friends, while the three youngest (my sister and two youngest brothers) are siblings like we'd always grown up together. My sis is asking me to be her backup birthing coach for her first baby, due any day now, she told our grandparents some time ago that I was the big brother she always dreamed of, (the oldest was always a bit rough on them), and when bio-step-dad is yelling at one of us, my name is in the string of names trying to say the right name.

 

My mother helped me find my father, he lives 3000 miles away, but I talk to him now and then, we've been out there to see him with the kids twice, he's been out here twice. At first his wife was ill at ease about all this, and I understand that, they'd never been able to have kids, and here I was, his kid from another woman. As time's gone on though, she's grandma to the kids, and I make it clear that she's no less welcome in our life than my father is, or my mother and her husband. She loves "her grandkids", and introduces them as such to people she knows when we are there. It really did turn out like a fairy tale. Mom and dad have thanksgiving with mother and her husband, and that whole side of the family. Everyone was present for first birthdays and such.

 

Mother is an RN and was with us through labor (we did delivery with just my wife and I though) keeping nurses on their toes, making sure my wife had everything she needed.

 

Mother is praying for mom, and now I'm crying again...

 

-nbr

[pippy longstocking]

hey darling ...sorry its taken so long to reply ..( I was off having me another bi polar situation hahaha)

 

your story is fab fab fab

 

I got goosebumps when all the siblings where sat waiting ..its great nbr ..two lovely familes brought together .

 

my mum is as undertsanding as your mum and always made the bio one welcome and the bio father and his wife where invited to family things etc etc ..

 

but because I was adopted before 77 I had to get a social worker and she had to get my details because the laws

didnt change here till 77 , and my mum had virtually nothing ...

 

infact , and you have to laugh now because its so different ...obviously my mum and dad applied for a child ,

and all that happened was they got a call to say they would be a getting a baby girl , and I was brought to them ...simple as that hahah ...oh how things change .

 

dont feel guilty darling I am GLAD you had a positive experience ..we where children , we didnt have choices ...but I made the choice to look for them ...and I had to ..its one of those things only we can understand .

 

my brother will never look for his ..he has no interest and he wouldnt be in the same house if my bio father came round , he is just disgusted with the whole thing .

 

how is mum darling ? how are you ? big big hugs nbr xxxxxxx

[nbr]

Mum is holding up fairly well. She's planning on thanksgiving at mothers house in fact.

I was adopted in 76, and yeah there were social workers involved.

 

more later

-nbr

[nbr]

She went to thanksgiving and had dinner, but afterwards got really pale (lips were white) and felt "foggy".

Recovered in a couple hours. Best guess, she ate too much and all the blood went to her gut to digest it.

 

She's getting 2 units of platelets and 2 units of red cells every week already...

 

It doesn't look good. My son and her were to work on some glass projects together (she does fused glass) but he came down with the flu so we have to stay away It's really hard on both of them.

 

Keep up the prayers folks, so far she's only tired and not hungry from the Chemo, not sick or in pain.

-nbr

[JA0371]

Hi nor..just reading your thread. My thoughts and prayers are with you. I am losing my be.oved pet of 14 years..I know not the same as losing your mom, but just wanted to offer my condolences. Stay strong.

[nbr]

Not the same perhaps, but I don't think our hearts care if it's a pet, or a parent, they still hurt.

Thank you for your prayers.

-nbr

[PeachyTeachy]

nbr,

I think I may know (somewhat) how you are feeling. I lost my Mother to cancer in 1999 when she was just 56 years old and it was the most earth shattering event of my life. Since then I have lost 3 brother's in law and my brother's 20 year old son. My father is currently battling cancer and is actually in the final stages. My heart just goes out to you. I'm so sorry that your wife isn't supporting you in the way you need her to. Throughout all these crises my faith has sustained me - Romans 8:18 is a verse that helps me a great deal. It's so hard to be strong in times like these. You are in my prayers. God be with you.

[nbr]

Update for you all.

I met with my mom and dad last night. She's decided to discontinue Chemo. Can't say I blame her. I could tell she wanted me to tell her she picked the right choice. All I could tell her was the pros and cons of the two choices, and that I was ok with whichever she chose as right for her.

 

My poor dad. He fell to bits. I can tell he's devastated that she wants to stop treatment. I am going to take him to the psychologist at the hospital that I've been seeing so that he can get set up with some grief counseling and support. My mom told him she wanted him to as well.

 

I still have not told them about the marital problems, and I felt like such a fraud last night, they were so proud of me as a man, and I simply feel like I failed. Still not going to tell them, my dad's focus needs to be on my mom, and my mom only needs to enjoy her time left with my dad.

 

Thank you all for the prayers.

-nbr

[iamkaylee]

Nbr you are a good man.

 

Your mom and dad don't need to know about your marital problems. Both of them knowing that you are there now and you will be there to take care of your dad is all they need and will be a great comfort to them both. You're giving them this.

 

Continuing prayers for peace for you and your family. Be strong, have faith.

[Kaytie]

You are definitely a wonderful man. Just continue to support them both - you have not failed at all. Sending good thoughts to you and yours.

[nbr]

My dad will know once I move in.

But, we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

 

As I gain acceptance into many of the facets of my life I had previously denied or refused to face I am finding peace, slowly. My wife has noticed too, I will be seperating from her once my mother dies, and moving in with my dad. It covers so many bases all at once.

My dad won't be alone.

Together we can afford the house, even with alimony and child support.

The kids will have a yard to play in, space to run.

It will be less traumatic for the kids, that daddy is taking care of grandpa.

 

I am sad about my mom, but she also has come to accept that she's had a good life, and few regrets. She is happy and at peace with herself, I hope to be as well when my time comes. I am sad, but feel good for her.

 

Thank you all.

 

(((Hugs)))

-nbr

[pippy longstocking]

hello darling ...you are a wonderful wonderful man , and I agree your parents don't need to know about the marital

problems .

 

I am also preying for your family , and for you darling to give you the strength to get through this xx

 

I wish I could hug you and sit a while and talk ...so cyber will have to do (((((()))))))

[camus154]

Condolences, nbr. I know you're struggling with a lot on your plate right now.

[JA0371]

Just wanted to offer you my support and condolences Nbr...and to say you haven't 'failed'. It takes a strong person of character to do what you're doing..so just know that. Thoughts and prayers for you and your family.

[nbr]

Well all,

She is officially on hospice care now.

My dad is having a really rough time of it, I convinced him that seeing a professional would be good for him. I'm going to take him either Monday or Tuesday (might end up having to ditch my own therapy sessions for it, but it's worth it).

 

My wife is being amazingly supportive right now, splitting is still the current plan, but she is waiting on the right time for everyone, and is doing other things that are very helpful. My finally accepting both that I need "help" and that she needs to find herself have taken such a load off me. I can focus more on my mom and my kids.

 

Not working is a double edged sword though... Down to $150 in the bank as of this morning... Wife is going to make a draw on her inheritance to float us a bit.

 

All you folks here are wonderful people, I hope you know

-nbr

[pippy longstocking]

nbr , my thoughts , my love and prayers are with you and your family xx if I could bottle some strength and send you it

 

I would xxxxx

 

your doing amazing .