The Scenario: Her husband died a few years ago. She lives alone in a small town with no family living nearby. There was a time when at least one of her children would still live in the area, but our society has become far too scattered for that to happen with any great regularity. She has one child living in a large city at least an hour away. Another child lives a few hundred miles away, and a third lives much further than that. She is approaching eighty and has a history of health problems that flair up unexpectedly and usually require hospitalization. These spells put a tremendous strain on the family, but she fights using a hospital in one of the large cites near one of her children. She offers all kinds of excuses for this reluctance, but the bottom line appears to be that her friends will not drive in the city traffic and will not come to see her when she is in a city hospital.  Some of the medical flair ups are caused by her not taking her medications. As soon as she feels some relief she stops the meds because they are so expensive. 

She will say she realizes that she needs to move near one of the children, but these statements are just a stall tactic and she can never find the time to even look at any alternatives for her living. She will agree to using physicians and hospitals in the large city where her son lives, but the first thing he knows, she is back in the hospital in a small town very near her home. These medical emergencies seem to always come during the times that her children are the busiest and when their involvement in her care is the most inconvenient. She does not do that on purpose of course, but she seems oblivious to the inconveniences.  

The family says they have talked until they are "blue in the face" (a local colloquialism) but it has done no good. Maybe that is part of the problem. No ones wants to lose control of their lives. No one wants to be told what they must do. No one wants to be forced into a decision without having their side of the story heard and understood.

No one will respond to a conversation that trivializes every issue they try to raise. If she talks about her friends, she is met with, "You will make new ones. Why in thirty days you will have more friends than you do now." When she talks about traffic, she is told, "You don't have to drive outside of your own neighborhood and the retirement facilities have vans to take you to the grocery store." The conversations never go beyond that, so no one knows what she is really feeling or what fears are causing her reluctance

This is a composite of many families I have known and walked with. It is a pretty good picture of the struggles faced by multitudes of families. I don't have a guaranteed cure for this scene but I do have something well worth the try.

Someone needs to go listen to her. I mean really listen to her. I mean hush and listen to her. The family must realize it is impossible to listen and instruct at the same time. This may involve more than one conversation. The first trip has to be totally listening, no arguing, no explaining, no demanding. "Mom, I know this is a scary time and that you are facing some very hard decisions and losses. I want to know how you really feel about this." Don't expect a quick response, it will seem like a trap to her. Until the conversation gradually proves you are not going to jump on her, she will have her guard up and it will come down very slowly. If it comes down, she will begin to reveal what the real problems are. The response must be, "I know that hurts or I know that is scary." Then leave it right there. The timing matters. It is not what we say, it is when we say it. After she knows you have heard and understood her thoughts, feelings and fears, then you can gently begin to ask her what solutions she sees and how she wants to approach solving the problems. 

I recognize this kind of conversation is probably foreign to most families and will be scary to some. Intimate conversations within the family are the hardest ones of all. There is too much at stake. We all seem to dread having any conflict within the family or, if there is conflict there, having to deal with it openly and honestly. Strange and scary though it might be, someone must discover what is happening within her, or the struggle will never end.