Ok, let’s pretend I said “n-word baby” instead? I didn’t know using the word in a metasense was forbidden. If is it is, mea culpa.
Don’t call August. April specifically asked you not to, and she would eventually find out one way or another - causing her to realize she could not trust you for anything.
Now, if she dies on the table, there’s no question but that you call August.
Or if she survives, but is in seriously bad shape (like, not gonna live much longer), I’d use my judgment: at that point she might not be capable of asking you to call.
Of course, HIPAA (assuming this is in the US) regulations would precluse the hospital sharing any info with August unless she’d granted permission, so August might not be able to do anything with the information.
The hypothetical essays they had a falling out, and I think the father is in the right. As such, arguments where the father did something horribly wrong are invalid. If I didn’t know the situation I couldn’t agree with the father, so that is out, too.
My judgment, as required by the hypothetical, is that she is only saying what she said because she’s angry at him. Not that he’s done something horrible. Those are different things and anger begets regret.
That said, I do feel some obligation, since I asked, to follow her request. But, given the totality of the circumstances as stated in the OP and lack of any good compromises, I think I tell, but say she’s still angry and he shouldn’t be there, but that I’ll keep him up to date.
If I didn’t know about the situation, and that it was some nothing fight, then my response would be different. But those are the constraints on the hypothetical.
I can come up with additions to the hypothetical that would lead everyone to feel super-guilty about not calling (what if the emergency surgery is due to some malevolent other person in the child’s life, and what if the parent would have helped her escape that malevolent person, and what if she didn’t tell you because she didn’t think you’d believe her, and what if she dies because you didn’t make the call? add details as you’d like).
But that’s not fair play. First, adding highly unusual things to the hypothetical of course is changing the hypothetical. Second, playing with details in an effort to make someone feel like a jerk is not copacetic.
You can:
-Follow the wishes of one friend.
-Follow the wishes of the other friend.
-Follow the wishes of neither friend.
I will respect April’s wishes. If, however, August contacts me, I will tell him.
I disagree your last statement is a conclusion that logically follows from the first one. Unless this hypothetical universe has somehow equipped us with infallible knowledge (which makes this hypothetical completely useless as a analogue to real-life decision making), we shouldn’t assume we’re 100% correct in believing April is wrong about her own assessment toward her own father.
Perhaps my own experience has informed how I see the danger “my opinion trumps yours” kind of thinking when it comes to other people’s relationships. Several years ago a good friend of mine was in a hellish state of conflict with her mother. The details were truly appalling. This woman (the mother) one day up and decided to move in with her daughter (my friend) and then proceeded to make her life very difficult by 1) quitting her job, 2) not helping with the bills at all 3) refusing to do any housework and then being a slob at the same time, 4) lying about even the smallest of things, and 5) laying all kinds of dramatic guilt trips on my friend every time she tried to assert herself. My friend couldn’t even do normal things like go on dates or invite friends over to her own house without her mother throwing immature fits.
Well, I could only conclude from this that my friend was in a patently toxic situation. Repeatedly I encouraged her to take a stand against her mother, even if it meant severing all ties with her. I could see how emotionally conflicted my friend was at this advice because she loved her mother and felt she had a duty to her, but all I could see was manipulation and emotional abuse. It was frustrating to see her in such pain and not be able to convince her to take the actions that I thought made sense. It was quite obvious that my poor friend couldn’t see things as clearly as I could because of her mother’s emotional blackmail.
Well, relatively recently, it all became clear what the real problem was: early-onset Alzheimer’s. After she was able to get her mother some therapy and come up with a medical plan, things got a lot better for both of them. It turns out that severing ties was not the answer. Her mother wasn’t being intentionally abusive, manipulative, or deceptive; the woman quite frankly was losing her mental faculties. And my friend had more insight than me to eventually see that it was a real medical problem occurring. In other words, I was very wrong in thinking my assessment was more accurate than hers.
Now, several years ago, before the Alzheimer’s diagnosis came out, I seriously would have contemplated overriding any request to invite her mother to my friend’s deathbed, because I was convinced her mother’s presence would’ve only made matters worse. Now? I would honor my dying friend’s request to see the woman she loves, even if I was convinced that love was undeserved.
I don’t know if you think this is a valid counterpoint to your view, but hopefully you’ll understand why nuance matters when entertaining these hypotheticals.
Did April list anybody as her next of kin? I would contact that person. If it’s me, and April doesn’t survive, then I contact August and make no mention of what she said. If April does survive, I ask her again if she is willing to have August visit her.
Sick bed reconciliations are a thing, and I am a parent. I also have practice in ignoring issues that I have with relatives when they are in need (“We don’t need to talk about that right now - let’s concentrate on getting you better”).
Unhealthy conspiracies of silence about things we don’t want to talk about aren’t always the worst option.
Regards,
Shodan
Fair enough.
By the way, I was once sort of August in this situation. My son went off to camp and died his hair – half bright red, half blue. He told some friends of mine, but asked them not to tell me.
The friends didn’t tell me. But after the fact, one friend said “if it had been something that would have truly upset you, I would have told you. If [another teen we knew] had done this, I would have told [his parents] because they would have cared a lot. But I thought you would be okay with this being a surprise.”
I appreciated that, and felt his judgement had been accurate. When my son came home, I looked at him and said, “I always wanted a red head”.
There are two conflicting messages here. The first is calling April a “kid” and a “child.” Skald says that this is simply because someone is significantly younger.
As someone in my mid 50s, I found that my thoughts changed if I thought of someone who were closer in age to me or someone in age closer to her. This difference in age does seem to hit my gut-level thinking, and I tend to be more respectful of the wishes for peers rather than for “kids.” If “the kid” were actually someone in their 40s or 50s, would we really be as quick to dismiss their concerns?
This brings up the second factor. April is 19 and you (the reader / respondent) are in love with her. The only way that this can’t be extremely icky is to treat this as if you were much younger yourself. Posts calling April “the kid” were jarring because of this clash between the age difference and being in love with her.
It’s her decision, you’re a dick of you don’t respect it.
He didn’t say “you” are in love with her. He said “you” love her. I love a lot of people, but the only one I’m in love with is my wife.
I donno. He doesn’t use that term to express “your” relationship with August. He could have have said you love her like a sister, that you are very close to her or a million other ways of indicating something other than the plain reading of the term.
Op admits he doesn’t have the stones to tell her he thinks she is wrong about the daughter father situation, so he waits until she indisposed to enforce his own beliefs.
Meh
No harm is coming to August if he is not told, harm does come to April (you defied her wishes for one) even from a simple utilitarian perspective the decision is easy.
So my guess is you told August, April went ballistic and now your looking for support?
Having been the April in the situation, I would not tell August anything until April was dead or her doc said time to get people here to do the final goodbye and deathwatch.
Your final paragraph leads me to wonder if you really understand that Skald made up this whole scenario, and that April and August do not actually exist in any concrete, Skald-related way.
If it was before the Alzheimer’s diagnosis came out (and consequently, before the initiation of any therapy and/or medical plan), istm that your conviction that her mom being there would only have made things worse would have been pretty valid.
Maybe. But it’s also possible her mother would’ve been fine at her bedside, because she was having a stretch of lucidity. This is something my friend would’ve had a much better sense of than me. As she’s fighting for her last breaths would’ve not been the time for me to be getting in a debate with her about it.
Point taken.
Anyway, as your friend’s situation was something actually happened (unlike the Skaldithetical), I’ll just say that I’m happy for your friend, that she was fortunate enough to reach a livable accommodation with that situation. 
Thanks; I’m glad too. I’m also glad she doesn’t hold it against me that I was so harsh in my judgment about her poor mother. It was a learning experience for both of us.