How Can We Make Her Understand?
By Beautyfactor
@Beautyfactor (1512)
April 22, 2010 3:01pm CST
My husband has an 87 year old grandmother who has just been told she needs a knee replacement operation. The problem is that the house she lives in is over three stories and is too big for her to look after and live in alone. She struggled to get up to bed and her heating bills are very high.
Her family have been trying to convince her to move out but she gets very angry and upset and accuses us of bullying her out of her home. The thing is she has lived in that house for over fifty years, it's where her hudband died and where her children were born.
After she has her operation she will find living there even more difficult, so how can we make her see sense and move out into a place where she can move around better?
3 responses
@coffeegurl (1467)
• United States
26 Apr 10
Get her to watch the movie, "Grey Gardens."http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mumWYU5aHBU
@coffeegurl (1467)
• United States
26 Apr 10
broken link? try this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mumWYU5aHBU
@spalladino (17891)
• United States
27 Apr 10
I went through this with my ex's grandmother many years ago. When you give up your home, and especially one that you've lived in for many decades and which is filled with memories, you are giving up your life as you've known it. You are saying goodbye to familiar things and to the life you have lived for so long. It was terribly painful for "Big Grandma" to leave her home. She was actually forced out by her son who tricked her into going from the hospital (she had pneumonia) into a nursing home and then tried to have her declared incompetent. Since she lived far away from everyone but him and he took care of her, the family had no choice in the matter and were content to leave her where she was. We took her in and, after a few difficult and sad days, she adjusted and was happy to be with us and the great grandchildren. My point here is that, if your husband's grandmother must move, the kindest way to do it is to have her stay with someone in the family who she is close to. Relocating her to a strange place where she will be alone is a terrifying prospect to an elderly woman.
@jugsjugs (12967)
•
22 Apr 10
This is a hard thing to do and you have to see it also from her point of view.The house she lives in is all that she has known aswell as loved for all of those years.Perhaps with her age aswell she maybe thinking that people are trying to put here in a home,even though you are not saying that to her,but that is what she is thinking you mean.I used to work with people her age and they are all set in their ways and they think that once they move they may be forgotten about by their friends aswell as by their family.Try telling her that you still want her to live near you aswell as she will still see all of you but you are thinking of her and her only.
