re: My Wife Was Dying, and We Didn’t Tell Our Children

Damn dude, I’m trying to get some work done and now my monitor is all blurry.

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That's a nice article but how did the kids not notice if she was going through chemo for seven years? When my wife went through chemo my toddler son definitely knew something was wrong.

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They knew she was getting treatment (even said couldn’t hide wigs) just didn’t know it was terminal.

I respect their intentions, but I think they did their kids a disservice. They denied their children a chance to grow and participate in their mother’s suffering.

I don’t think it was selfish. My dad did the same thing with my grandmother. He had some type of skin cancer around his eye but luckily it wasn’t spreading and was able to get it removed. He just didn’t want to worry her and I understand if people want to keep it a secret from their loved ones

Just lived this story. My wife fought triple negative breast cancer for 5 years. She lost that fight in August, 2018.

I’m sitting in the beautiful sun reading this as my wife gardens . She looked up and asked what’s my problem , are you crying? As a health care worker I see this type of situation a lot . Our best friend is going through the same diagnosis. She has 16 yo triplets.

We need more parents like this in the World. Would be a lot better society overall.

Reading this makes me think of my dad. We lost him to cancer last month. We knew that every holiday this past year was going to be his last. Seeing his face glow when he saw my kids, nieces, and nephews at birthday parties, thanksgiving, and Christmas is something I’ll remember the rest of my life. Me and my siblings never told our children how bad he really was until the week before he past so they could enjoy the little time they had left with him. That’s the way he wanted it

This was a good read. I spend lots of time with cancer patients and everyone has a different situation. It's always nice when people and their families have perspective on the overall scenario and quality of life vs quantity of life. I've seen families make very poor decisions in the final weeks/months of life of their loved ones and I've seen the opposite. These are important things to consider in the face of a terminal or at least severe illness.

I’m in awe of everyone in this thread. Tears welling up, knot in my throat. Godspeed to you all, you have given me a new perspective.