Dad likely nearing the end, how am I going to handle this?

[Blueberry Pancakes]

My parent's ALF called last week to update that my dad is refusing treatment for his CHF, and they spoke to him about hospice. I had been his health POA, but they said dad told them to make arrangements with his golden child instead. Nobody knows the future, but I am preparing for what lies ahead. 

1) How much to I engage with this? 2) If my dad passes and sibling plans a funeral, do I attend? 

I have been NC with GC sibling for six years and VLC with parents. I re-engaged a few months ago to move parents to assisted living. All the dynamics hurled. When parents were settled, I went back to VLC and NC.

With my dad ill and mom having dementia, I feel like GC sister is a human wrecking ball. During our days of contact, she informed me she had an attorney meet my parents at their ALF to revise their Will, Estate Plan, and financial POA. She claimed they "did it wrong". I was appalled. Parents however just signed whatever she did. My parents pre-paid for their funeral and picked their chosen cemetery. I held the documents but gave her a copy and she just told me the cemetery was too far away and she would have them buried elsewhere. She also said she was not having a funeral service because nobody would attend as most of their friends are already deceased. I called a lawyer about the legality of her actions, but that is a different story. 

During times I disagreed with her, she predictably raged at me for being "useless". Whatever I did, she un-did. I felt I was being erased. I see how my dad is not making any space for me that really matters. I believe my sister only acts toward me in the same manner she saw from my parents. I think my sister was correct when she called me "useless" because that is exactly what I am to them. 

I have nothing to say to my dad that I have not said before. There have been countless "I love you" words. I have supported my dad in several ways. I accept he has nothing more for me in terms of reconciliation on past wrong doings, no apologies and he will never see who I truly am. If my sister does plan a funeral service, I assume it will only be something designed to serve her needs and will have nothing at all to do with my dad. 
   
My question is, what is the benefit to anyone if you if you engage with this situation? Any advice? 

My sister had an 80th birthday party for my mother without me while I was out of town. People later asked where I was. My sister invited me to her daughter's wedding, then un-invited me when I did not apologize to her. Now, if I do not attend a "funeral", I will be the one who did not go to her mother's birthday party, did not attend her niece's wedding and did not go to her own father's funeral. None of this is what I did but was bestowed upon me by my family.
       

 

[SonofThunder]

Hi Blueberry,

Im sorry this is occurring in your life. Your experience is very similar to when my FiL passed away.  My SiL was also a "human wrecking ball" of control over everyone and the entire scene. 

If your story was my own, here's how I would answer your two questions.

1. Since control is always about the controller who uses others to feed upon, I would become tasteless food.  If I had already participated greatly (as you have done) and was manipulated at every turn, I would simply disengage.  Imo becoming tasteless food is not surrender, but rather a self-protective retreat strategy.  Retreat is purposefully done to regroup, seeing the bigger picture that includes after the funeral is over and all legal matters settled.  Sometimes there are losses in retreat and in fact, losses can be actually used as a tool by me in order to allow others perceptions to be what they desire to assume, yet they do not understand what I know jn private. I could care less what they may assume. Only I know my true long range strategy and my proper retreat is just as strategically important as my advancing.  Ime, once my food is tasteless by NC, VLC or refusal to participate, the control-thrill audience of the PD shifts to others, once they have completed their smear thrills toward me. 

2. I believe attending family funerals is solely for recognition and comfort of truly grieving remaining family. Even if I only had one caring and kind family member who would truly find comfort in my being there to respect their deep loss, I would attend solely for that one person. I do not attend funerals for my own reputation with others and obviously the one who has passed has no clue who attended.  If there is not a single remaining hurting family member who is a caring person in my life, I do not attend. 

Wishing you the best and strength as you deal with a difficult situation and potential loss. 

SoT

[Blueberry Pancakes]

Thank you, SoT. I read and re-read your post, and it makes sense to me. I like the protective retreat as a strategy not a surrender. The tasteless food also makes sense. 
 
I am grief-stricken and it surprises me. I realize what I thought would never happen, will indeed be happening. I am sad. I feel a huge loss and emptiness I cannot explain. I feel my heart breaking. I sometimes just cry. I do not however want sadness and grief to pull me into situations that will cause damage to me personally. I am really working now to gain clarity on a position that feels right to me and will be what guides me and anchors me in what lies ahead. 
 
I also believe funerals are not for the one who passed, but for those who remain. It is to offer support and maybe feel strength from a community with a shared experience. In the years I have been NC and VLC, not one person in my larger family or long-time friends reached out to me. People I shared holidays and backyard barbeques with never picked up a phone to ask how I was. No calls, cards or social media exchanges. I am sure nobody would attend for me, and I will therefore find no comfort from them. All the more reason their opinions of me should not sway me. 

Thank you for your thoughtful reply.

[bloomie]

Blueberry Pancakes - First of all, gentle hugs to you. This is a lot! This is a convergence of all of the players in a family system where it sounds like you have suffered a great deal of hurt, confusion and disappointment.

You are in a season where very important decisions and moments are taking place around your elderly parents and you are having to navigate that with people who are not healthy enough to be loving, tender, supportive of each other and inclusive. I'm so sorry and I wish that were different for you.

You have engaged quite a bit already. Your parents have care that you were able to secure for them. That is huge and a very loving thing to do for them.

If I am understanding what you shared correctly, your sibling has positioned themselves as the responsible party for your parents? So, am I right in thinking you don't really have to engage with her about anything, unless you choose to?

What came to my mind, Blueberry Pancakes, is this is a time to choose your battles wisely. Because it feels like a ginormous power struggle with your sister and possibly she is energized by the engagement and you are drained by it.

I know for the human wrecking ball in our FOO this was her Super Bowl. She had been waiting for this kind of positioning and control and forced contact - because how dare we go NC and ignore her - for years. She can and will complicate and obfuscate and create a power struggle over something as simple as where to put the salt and pepper shakers in elderly family members home. I wish I were making that up. True story.

I am grief-stricken and it surprises me. I realize what I thought would never happen, will indeed be happening. I am sad. I feel a huge loss and emptiness I cannot explain. I feel my heart breaking. I sometimes just cry. I do not however want sadness and grief to pull me into situations that will cause damage to me personally. I am really working now to gain clarity on a position that feels right to me and will be what guides me and anchors me in what lies ahead. 

This is what matters imv. This. Making a whole lot of room for your needs and well being. 

I wish grief made sense, but so often it hits unexpectedly and whoosh it hurts. For me, in this end of life scenario, I realized that whatever hope I had held in my heart for things to be different needed to be released and I also would say that the behavior of both our own wrecking ball sibling and my parents' continued collaboration with all of that brought fresh wounding that needed to be tended to.

Your heart is a bruised flower that needs watering, bright sunshine, and cool breezes. I say, engage in whatever protects your peace and if you can, try not to project into the future about memorial services, burials, ect. When the time comes you will know what, if anything, you need to do.

[Rebel13]

I'm so sorry you are hurting and grieving, Blueberry Pancakes. It makes perfect sense to me that you are! Like bloomie said, there is less and less room, as this situation progresses, for the hope that your parents will see the error of their ways and make amends for all the hurt that they caused you. So of course you have to grieve for that lost hope, and all of the losses that came before.

For what it's worth, when I said goodbye to my mom last year for the last time, and initiated NC with her, that included acknowledging to myself that I won't attend her funeral, if there is one. I agreed with myself that I would provide any help my brother requested in resolving her affairs, but that's all the involvement I'm planning on. I am not sure how I got to the level of peace I have right now with those decisions -- and I don't know that it will last when the time actually arrives! But I do believe it is perfectly OK for you, or anyone struggling with disordered family dynamics, to decide what level of involvement you want to have, or can tolerate, in these events, and stick to that, as long as it feels like your best option.

Take really good care of yourself while all of this is going down.

[Blueberry Pancakes]

Thank you, Bloomie and Rebel. What you say makes so much sense. 

Bloomie - What you say is beautiful. Yes, I feel my sibling staged a ginormous power struggle and is indeed energized by the same things that zap me. I think she found her shining moment. She was reactivated from a dormant status as the family system had been running without all the components for years. The forced contact from all pieces in place fueled her along with the incremental power grabs as she exerted more control over the aging sub-components. I think it did bring fresh wounding to see parents' collaboration with her. I agree it is important that I make room for my needs and what will bring me peace. 

Rebel - Thank you. It makes total sense that a degree (maybe a lot of it?) of the grief I feel is the loss of the chance I will ever have any element of satisfaction. I feel like my dad allowing my sister to remove my name from everything was as though he literally deleted me. Logically, I always figured it would happen, but it just became real. Thank you also for sharing your view on the decisions you made. I am glad you have peace with that, and I hope it remains steady. I really believe it is just that - peace - that is the golden egg. The "prize". It is nothing anyone can give us, and it costs nothing. Once we have it, it is everything. Thank you.