Merged Fred Phelps nearly dead/Is dead.

Update:

Fred Phelps is still dead.

He died alone. The only people who had access to him aside from medical personnel were family members who considered him, by virtue of his excommunication, bound for Hell. The only people who wanted to see him, estranged family members wanting to say farewell, were denied entrance. It's is highly unlikely anyone visited him, given the nature of his excommunication and the church's typical stance on people outside their church.

The last people he saw were doctors, nurses and orderlies. He died being tended to by strangers.

That's the legacy of hate. That's the legacy of homophobia. Dying alone and unloved.
 
halleyscomet said:
Update:

Fred Phelps is still dead.

He died alone. The only people who had access to him aside from medical personnel were family members who considered him, by virtue of his excommunication, bound for Hell. The only people who wanted to see him, estranged family members wanting to say farewell, were denied entrance. It's is highly unlikely anyone visited him, given the nature of his excommunication and the church's typical stance on people outside their church.

The last people he saw were doctors, nurses and orderlies. He died being tended to by strangers.

That's the legacy of hate. That's the legacy of homophobia. Dying alone and unloved.
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My personal opinion (based on experience) is that being surrounded by professional caregivers may actually have been the kindest thing.

My father was a sociopath (never violent physically and capable of being extremely charming, but also manipulative, brilliant, and inclined to set people against each other for his own entertainment). As he sank into his own mental illness in his later years, there came a point where it was much easier on him if he was cared for by professionals whom he wasn't expected to have any emotional attachment to or care for and who didn't rise to his baits or respond to his games. It took a lot of stress off.

In contrast, when we showed up, the paranoia went into full force (his guilty conscience at play, I suspect) and he was scared and angry. When we left, he settled and was at least calm...which was as good as it got for him at that point.

Given everything I've read, I suspect Fred may have been somewhat the same and removing expectations of emotion may well have been easier on him.

Don't get me wrong, I grieve for his family, particularly those who are probably now wishing they could have some kind of closure. The problem, at least in my experience, is that with people that ill, closure isn't possible, at least not any kind that requires something from them. They can't give it. If they could, they wouldn't be in that situation.

And contact can make things worse. I know I'd just as soon not have had the experience of my father screaming at me that he knew mom and I were trying to kill him (by dumping cement on his head from the ceiling) and steal his money.

Further, I doubt if you'd been able to show Fred Phelps how he'd end that he'd have done a thing differently. We're horrified, but I think his internal logic was probably so different from the rest of us that his response would be very different from a normal person. Which is to say that this will only act as an object lesson for more or less normal people, the next Fred Phelps isn't likely to care.

I dunno, with some people I guess there's just no good solution. Fred Phelps strikes me as a prime example.
 
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Bumped for this story, regarding Phelp's discommendation.

The name Fred Phelps has become synonymous with the most unspeakably hateful antigay rhetoric imaginable, but before the reverend passed away earlier this year he’d been excommunicated from the notorious Westboro Baptist Church he founded for reasons that have remained unclear. Now his grandson, 23-year-old Zachary Phelps-Roper, who left the church in February, has shed some light on the surprising reason his grandfather was kicked out of the hate-spewing ministry — he’d expressed admiration for the rainbow-striped Equality House, described as a symbol of peace and positive change for the LGBTQ community,” located across the street from Westboro headquarters in Topeka, Kansas.
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catsmate1 said:
Bumped for this story, regarding Phelp's discommendation.
Click to expand...

Is it possible maybe Phelps had a sincere change of heart in his last months? Anecdotal, but my ex-mother-in-law despised me for 15 years. About a week before she died (she was in the hospital for 3 weeks) she told me during a visit: "I was wrong about you; you're a good person. When I get out of here, I'm gonna make it up to you."

Maybe toward the end of life people realize what's important and what's not.
 
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