Good talks

The insight mentioned in the previous post would not have happened without conversations with my sisters.

We have gotten better at this, though it took a while. 

The first time I asked anyone about anything related to Mom's condition and eventual death, the answers I received ranged from no responses to "I don't know."

More recently, we were talking about visiting. I said that they don't have to visit Mom -- she does not really know if they are or not -- but one day she will die, and we may not get much warning; they will have to decide what will help them be okay with that. 

Julie told one of her friends about that, and got the response, "Wow, Gina's really mean."

Obviously, but I was just trying to be practical.

Still more recently, we were talking about some concerns that someone else was having due to an elderly relative in bad health. I had answers. I had researched all of that and had notes. That is the "Death List".

That led to talking about notifications. I have notes on that too. There are people I will call, and people who will get e-mail or Facebook messages. One point of contact can take care of telling people from church. For one friend, we will tell her daughter so she can decide if her mother is up to it, and would benefit from knowing. Our mother isn't the only one whose health is deteriorating.

There is an order that it needs to be done in, because there are some people who will proclaim it loudly and insensitively. Other people would be hurt finding out like that, and no one needs worse pain.

As we were talking about it this time, they thought of a friend of theirs who would be hurt if she did not hear it from them. 

I had never thought of that aspect. My thoughts went to family members and friends of Mom, but what about my friends?

I mean, it's been a few years since I made the Death List anyway; it's probably due for revamping. 

I momentarily got optimistic that some of those questions that were not answered back then could be answer now.  

They still don't know. That's okay, this is hard.

Still, seeing that we do talk better now, and that we have meaningful conversations way more often than we used to, and also being reminded that we have different perspectives so they will think of things that I would not... all of that let me know that I needed to run some of these ideas about my feelings about Mom by them. 

They did not immediately get what I was asking, but that eventually led me to see that I had been thinking about it in a way that wasn't quite right either. 

I had thought and written before we talked, and I did more writing and thinking after, but that conversation was needed.

We don't do this alone.