If any of you have followed my son's story, you know that Silas passed away 3 months ago. His little body couldn't fight anymore, the cancer took over. I will never be the same again, life will never be the same again. I miss him so much. Life was so much easier when my job was caring for him. It was easier to focus on him and his needs than to deal with the rest of the world. Now that he is gone, the rest of the world has come crashing in. MIL has been in a nursing home since January. A couple of weeks before Silas passed away she asked if she could come home, dh told her "not now". I know she wanted to be near Silas all of the time during those last few weeks, but there wasn't anyway she could help, having her here created more work for us and took time away from us being with Silas. We did have her over every couple of days or so. We were supposed to bring her home after Silas recovered from surgery in February. But he didn't recover, he got worse and died. We pick MIL up for church every Sunday morning, and now that Dh is working again he visits her several times a week during his lunch breaks. Yesterday after church she asked him if we had thought about when she can come home. He said we had thought about it but that things are just too hard for us right now. He said it may be 6 months, or a year, or never, but he just can't say right now. Things didn't turn out like we expected. She responded by saying that things would be OK, and if we can't bring her home we can just take her to "Papa's house" and she'll be fine living there. Papa's house is where her parents lived before they died. No one lives there, it is not handicap accessible. MIL cannot walk, she can barely stand long enough to move from her wheelchair to the bed/car/toilet, she has no use of her left hand or leg. She has short term memory loss. She cannot use the toilet, get dressed, bathe, or do much of anything without assistance. Papa's house, is out of the question and I am beside myself that she does not understand this. Since being in the nursing home she has lost a lot of her strength. She needs a lot more assistance with moving around. She won't push her own wheel chair around anymore. She shakes when she gets up from her wheel chair to get into bed or the car or onto the toilet. She's gained 2 clothing sizes too. I can't take care of her right now. I am a mess myself. It is so hard to take care of my 3 boys that I still have with me, I cannot imagine trying to take care of her too right now. Though I won't say never, I just can't now. I do feel guilty, but dh says that its our responsibility to see that she's taken care of, not necessarily that we have to be the ones doing the day to day care of her. I promised her that I would keep her at home as long as possible, this is not the way I saw that ending. I thought maybe she would get to the point that she needed more physical care than I could give, I didn't imagine I would not be able to care for her because of my grief over losing my son. Well, that's where I am at right now. Not a caregiver anymore, well, unless you count the 3 boys I am responsible for. They are 8, 10, and 12 right now. I love them dearly and am doing all I can to be a good mother to them. Everyone says I am doing well, but sometimes it doesn't feel like it.