Should we send our grandparents to homes where they just wait to die?

[Nev]

We love our gran. She sits in the chair and keeps an eye on all of us. She makes sure we keep the windows shut when it's cold and open when it is warm. We don't mind her telling us what to do. She makes demands, but we made demands of her. She had a household to run for years and years, running around to get meals, ironing clothes, shopping for food and all the rest. She was always there when needed. Now we are there for her. We love our gran, and she loves us too.

Down the road is the old people's home. They sit there and stare, waiting to die. It's a far cry from home, with little real love to keep them warm. Some are still lively, but many feel the loneliness deep inside. No-one can ease that inner pain of not being needed, existing for the sake of no-one in particular, left to patiently wither away, time passing slowly with each laborious hour, day after day, night after night in palpable silence.

There are thousands huddled in homes away from home, waiting to die.

Gran is up to her tricks again, trying to walk when we all know she mustn't in case she should fall, and she will keep telling us what to do.

But we really don't mind. We'll be the same one day. Besides, we wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for gran...

Why should we send grandparents to death row in homes?

 

[xck]

grand

Nev,

Why should they send grannie to death row homes? They're choosing it for them I reckon I am now the proud granny of tree. I am not about to lay down and die, I'm going to be dancing some more. Been there etc.

I'm considering dusting off my old tapping shoes on the way back from the pool hall. love love to all grannies.

Remember that silly c-eve song, "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer" ? I remember that CD well, because it was one I couldn't sell when I was selling them. The guy on the front of the CD had that Liberace thing going on.

Well I tend to believe it really went like, "Although granny was a catholic, she dove for that reindeer at midnight, because grandpa quit making tamalies"

 

[Nev]

I'm truly happy you're a happy gran!

 

[the number 42]

On a less random note, collectivist cultures are generally better than individualistic cultures at taking care of extended family members. 'Make your own way in life' is cold comfort when you are a 73 year old widower.

 

[Evo]

Sometimes people have to put the elderly in nursing homes because of the amount of medical care they need.

My mother took care of my father's mother (her mother-in-law) for 15 years in our home, none of her own 10 children were willing to do it. My paternal grandmother was a quadraplegic due to advanced rheumatoid arthritis. It got to the point that my mother could no longer care for her at home, so we put my grandmother in a nursing home, the best we could find near our house where she could have 24 hour medical monitoring. My mother went there at least twice a day every day. She took her full course home cooked meals. She wrote all the letters for my grandmother to relatives, bathed her, did her hair.

My grandmother was hateful and awful to my mother and us. She was a very unpleasant person. No wonder her own kids abandoned her. My mom is a freeking saint for what she did for that woman all those years.

When she died, none of her family, except us, went to her funeral, except my father, he refused to even go one single time to visit her at the home. Oh, but they all wanted to know what they had inherited.

Many people dump the elderly into nursing homes to get rid of them, some place them there for help. It's how often you visit and what you do for them to enhance their life there that makes the difference.

 

[Nev]

Evo,

I am sorry to hear that your granny was such a difficult person. I guess some people don't grow old very gracefully, and of course there are some who need special care which their family cannot provide. I would add that I have the greatest admiration and respect for your mother, who must be a very caring person, the same, I am sure, as yourself.

 

[tunakoyo]

It's LOVE vs OUR LIFE

It's LOVE vs OUR LIFE.
I'd be miserable if I was "alive to keep another alive".
True and shows that I have a perfection flaw.

-tunakoyo

 

[Nev]

I regret that my little letter entitled "love for grannies" was taken from a
book I once wrote about love and the lack of it in our society in the UK. It
is an idealised version of what might have been for my poor mother-in-law if
I had been more kind. When she had a stroke my wife and I looked after her
for a while in our home, but because we had two very young children to care
for and I was out all day at work, our doctor arranged for her to go into a
care home, where she had a bad fall. She was taken to hospital and soon after
that she died, as I believe from a broken heart. While she was still recovering
from an operation to mend her broken thigh, a nurse told me to tell her that
she could never come home again, to help her to 'settle in'(?). I did as the
nurse suggested and I shall never forget the look of scorn on the face of
another nurse at the time. A few days later my mother-in-law died. She never
once complained about me or anyone of my family. She simply longed to come
home. So I am not the nice guy I pretended to be and sadly that is the truth
of the matter.