This past November, my mother was found to have a very large brain aneurysm and needed surgery to have it clamped. It was a difficult time in my family’s life but she got out of the hospital a few days before Christmas, and although she is not at 100%, she is doing considerably better. I am very close to my mom and have been there almost every day since she got out of the hospital.
Anyways, my father retired (rather was forceably retired) from his job in fall of last year, so there was no insurance during the time of the event. My mom worked part time as a waitress, but that was supplemental income. Through the generosity of the hospital however, all hospital bills were paid and even future follow up visits were covered. There was a few bills from an emergency care facility at another hospital that were also covered by a reimbursement plan my dad had through his company. So all is pretty well financially, my mother doesn’t have her extra income, but my parents are doing well thanks to my dad’s retirement, even though they intensely dislike one another (that’s a story for another day).
Before the hospital agreed to pay my sister came up with the idea for an elimination dinner. I thought this was a good idea, we laid out the groundwork on what had to be done, etc. but once I found out that all the bills were going to be paid for, my enthusiasm towards this dinner lessened and I though that there really wasn’t a need to raise a lot of money, and if we continued, it would be under false pretenses and I really wasn’t up to that. I hoped my sister and mother would have agreed but they didn’t.
We initially printed out 200 tickets for this dinner months ago and so far have sold 45. My mother and sister have been soliciting every place, even to strangers to buy tickets for this dinner. My sister even wanted me to put an ad in the paper for this. With time coming closer (this dinner is Saturday the 9th), I wrongly assumed that the steam would run out and this dinner would be canceled. Now it may seem wrong of me to want this dinner not to happen but the main reason is, my sister and mother are still pushing that the medical bills have been piling up and this elimination dinner would really help ease it all. But the real reason my mom wants this dinner to happen is to have money to buy for Christmas! Now I could absolutely care less about getting gifts for Christmas, it makes no difference to me. I know it’s my mom’s favorite holiday and she loves buying for kids and grandkids but I feel that this is so wrong on many levels. My wife is upset as well that this is happening and my other sister as well as my dad feel that saying something is ultimately going to bite them in the ass. I’m too much of a coward to bring it up to my sister, I know I would be demonized as the child who didn’t want to help his poor mom, and my mom has been very depressed since all of this happened and I can’t make myself say something, and now it looks to be too late. Here is the icing on the cake. Since ticket sales were so low, my sister wants to rig the dinner so the main $1,000 prize is given to a goof friend of my mothers who said he wouldn’t keep the money, but instead give it all back to my mom.
I feel that this whole ordeal is wrong and my sister and mom don’t understand why people aren’t buying tickets. I think my family knows that my parents are doing just fine and her friends who have bought the tickets don’t know any better.
I just wanted to get this off my chest, it is causing my an enormous amount of stress and pain…I just want some other opinions.