Ok...this is probably a GenX question/situation.
I got an anonymous email today to tell me my biofather has been put in assisted living.
Like most early GenX, I was feral, I rarely saw adults and when I did, abuse was brutal and constant.(I was born before abortion was legal, and my mother never let me forget it.) I left her house at 13 and made my own way in the world. (Now, those are some stories!)
I've only seen my father 15 times since I was 7 and they divorced. He's never met my kid, and she just turned old enough to buy booze.
It's not like if he'd ever reached out, or tried to visit I would have said no. I've had the same email address and land line! since 1995, and there are only three people in the world with my name.
I haven't spoken to any of my biological family in years.
I don't know what to do with this information.
Should I try to go and make peace and say goodbye? Will his current wife, barely older than me, let me? Will he even remember me?
What would you do?
@MissConstrue
I'd be leery of any/all anonymous emails about family, quite frankly. Anybody can masquerade as anybody else on the internet.
@ClaraListensprechen4
Yeah, I thought that too, but I have mad research skills, and was able to track his voting record to that address, and discovered that all of his properties had been sold, or redeeded to his wife's kids. The facility can't tell you if patient is there, if they are dementia or altzheimers, but I can ask them to ask the power of attorney to release the information. Whether she will?
Altheimers and dementia do not run in the family though, so I'm not sure why he's there...if in fact, you so astutely point out, he is there at all.
I've been trying to figure out a scam angle on this, and am coming up empty, but emotions are high, and I absolutely welcome common sense! Thank you.
@MissConstrue I’d it’s not a burdensome drive to say goodbye I would do it. @ClaraListensprechen4
@Pineywoozle @MissConstrue
Old folks in nursing homes don't necessarily have dementia but they have to live with those who do and it'll give any sane person a hard attitude.
But there's a factor of decades and the physical changes that go with it. Anyone not keeping in touch won't recognize the person you've become even so.
@ClaraListensprechen4 My great grandad always thought I was my mom and it was kind of interesting even as a kid to get that glimps into her relationship to him. Like I said I think there might be reasons that make it worth the effort but for sure don’t invest in it being some dream reunion etc. @MissConstrue
@Pineywoozle @MissConstrue
Wise words, piney. Like I said, it depends on where things are at.
@ClaraListensprechen4
Yep, plus he might still have lucid times. Also onne of the best vids I ever saw about dementia was a woman whose mom had retreated into her adolescence. At first the woman struggled to make her mom be her mom and it was sad and angry by turns…then she decided to just get to know her mom as she was and it was mournful letting go but then joyous to the end as well as edifying about how her mom came to be the woman she loved as a mother. #Alzheimers @MissConstrue
@Pineywoozle @MissConstrue
I should add that I have those same tunes on my play list, for me to hear now and then.
Louis Prima, Guy Mitchell, Milton Berle, ...here's a sample, Guy Mitchell:
@ClaraListensprechen4 I like old novelty songs.😜 One thing I did with my mom long before she got dementia was to find old movies from her childhood and watch them with her. Then when I started living with the BT I got him to watch them with me and we talk about my mom. She passed only a few years after they met but he loved her. He and I often sing old Danny Kaye songs from movies. @MissConstrue
I understand that Danny Kaye was no great family man in real life, but here's a toast to all the kids who delighted in his public one. And to Hans Christian Anderson.
@ClaraListensprechen4 @Pineywoozle Oh...you know, I'm gonna have to never look that up. There are some people in my fantasy life, like movies and authors, that I just can't bear to have milkshake ducked. Like...Kate Hepburn or Cary Grant or Jimmy Stewart or Ted Geisel. I cannot ever know anything bad about them.
@MissConstrue @Pineywoozle
Ya, I can understand keeping fantasyland in fantasyland though I'd like to point out exceptions among those performers who share their personal stories and hardships and do very well nonetheless--even when they were female comedians going down that rough, rough professional road dominated by males.
Carol Burnette case in point, and she was featured as a comedian as far back as the original Twilight Zone. 30 years ago? That road got so much easier for the likes of Judy Tenuta.
Judy was also preceded by Cloris Leachman and Phillis Diller, two other megawatt trailblazers.
@MissConstrue @Pineywoozle
How could I leave out Lucille Ball?????
