Dear Abby: Employees make sacrifices caring for dying co-worker

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RO-51

DEAR ABBY: A co-worker has been stricken with multiple stage-4 cancers. We have been supporting him. His condition is terminal, in the final stage and deteriorating rapidly. We don't have the heart to send him home and take away the only thing that gives him his reason to live - his work. So we spend our time providing hospice care, something none of us have any training for.

Our work environment has become increasingly stressful and anxious. I need to make a choice - to place my family and my well-being first, take a leave of absence and abandon my co-workers, or stay in support and have a front-row seat to the imminent passing. - 911 ON SPEED DIAL

DEAR 911: Discuss this with your employer. Neither you nor your co-workers are trained caregivers. No one should be administering medical care because of possible liability to the company.

You are sensitive and caring. However, if the situation has become more stressful than you can manage, it's time to take a step back. To do so isn't abandoning anyone; it is looking after your own mental health so you can provide for your family.

DEAR ABBY: My parents divorced when I was a small child. My father remarried when I was 10, and I loved my stepmother dearly. She died in 1994 after 27 years of marriage. Daddy then met another lovely woman I'll call "Eileen," whom he dated for many years. By this time, I was nearly 40 and living 1,000 miles away from them. He eventually moved in with her, but they didn't actually marry until 2018. Eileen is only 13 years older than I am, so I have always thought of her as my father's third wife, not my stepmother.

Daddy died last year, and I'm not sure how much of a relationship I want to maintain with Eileen, or how to refer to her when I have occasion to introduce her to someone. She was extraordinarily good to my father (better than he deserved, I might add), and I'm grateful for that, but the link that tied us is now gone.

She's coming to visit soon. Introducing her to my friends as Dad's third wife seems a bit cold, but introducing her as my stepmother would mischaracterize our relationship. She had no children of her own, and I don't want to give her the impression that I have bonded to her as if she were my mother. Please help. - CHALLENGED IN THE SOUTH

DEAR CHALLENGED: Treat Eileen as you would want to be treated if the situation were reversed. Introduce her warmly as Eileen. If further clarification is needed, she is Daddy's widow. That she is third in the line-up does not need to be mentioned. As to giving her the impression that you feel bonded to her, don't obsess over it. Your relationship with her is either warm and rewarding, or it isn't. If it is only obligatory, ask yourself why you feel the need to keep her at arm's length, and act accordingly.

Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.

Abby shares more than 100 of her favorite recipes in two booklets: "Abby's Favorite Recipes" and "More Favorite Recipes by Dear Abby." Send your name and mailing address, plus check or money order for $16 (U.S. funds) to: Dear Abby, Cookbooklet Set, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054-0447. (Shipping and handling are included in the price.)

photo Jeanne Phillips

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