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opinion | JOAN WICKERSHAM

Why ‘I didn’t want to worry you’ worries you

By Joan Wickersham

 |   

  March 23, 2012

The phone call came a week after my husband’s stepfather fell, and a day after he was released from the hospital. It was the first we’d heard about any of it. “He’s doing fine now,’’ my mother-in-law said. “Everything’s fine.’’ By that point, it was. But my husband and I wondered: Why hadn’t they called us earlier? He asked his mother. Anyone who has an aging parent, or who is an aging parent, can guess what she answered: “Because we didn’t want to worry you.’’

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