The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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I'm sorry for what you're going through. I would recommend seeing him, no matter what, no matter what burdens you think you're laying at his feet.
I lost my mom to cancer in 2017. She was in a outpatient care home for a few weeks near the end and I would leave work to go visit her. Then one day I just forgot, went straight home, and it wasn't until I was already settled that I panicked and thought to go see her. I never did, that night, and went the next day. She and my dad told me to brush it off.
When she died, she was in the hospital, and I left earlier that night to go home. She died in the middle of the night. My brother was there. I left.
I don't think anything would have changed if I had made it, or I had stayed, but in both cases, I wish I did. It was hard to stay that night, too hard, and I didn't. But I should have.
Go spend time with your father, especially if this turns out to not be cancer. See him as a human being, and your father, and spend your time with him. It will not be easy, but it's not supposed to be easy. It's supposed to be worth it.
I am going to try to be there as much as I can. I know that no matter what happens, I'm going to feel like I haven't done enough, and it's probably true.
He lives three hours away. We've always had a bit of a precarious relationship - he's only been in my home three times in the last twenty years. He doesn't disapprove of my lifestyle, but he doesn't really understand it. There's always been a gulf there that I feel like I've never been able to bridge. I just wish I had more time to keep trying.
I'd second the notion that it will not be easy, and add that sometimes you will feel useless, or in the way, or that you're not clicking and just making matters worse, disruptive, doing nothing, etc. And then you should stay anyway. I do not wish to try and trump your situation by going into a long narrative of my own parents' deaths, but based on having myself lived through those times, I'd say yes, your instinct to be there is the right one. Edit: I am not trying to prematurely push your dad into the grave. Just relating.
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