Death and dying. Parents, friends, yourself. What are your experiences?

What are your experiences of death and dying?

Here's an odd one.
When my mother was dying, it was only on the day that she died that I admitted to myself that she would die.
It was a fait accompli.
I'm not usually so unrealistic in the way that I approach things.

 

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My grandfather, who stood in for my father when that lazy bastard decided drinking was more important than his family, passed away about three years ago now... after having beaten cancer several times, he had gone out one morning to get the mail. He came inside, sat down, and said he didn't feel real well... my grandmother went to get him some water, and when she turned back around he was slumped over... turns out he had a combination stroke/aneurysm... by the time they got him to the hospital, there was nothing they could do. They made the decision to take him off life support, saying he probably would only last minutes without it...

He ended up holding on for another day and half... long enough for his son (my uncle) to make it up here from halfway across the eastern sea board... long enough for us to have one last dinner together as a full family... and for me to say goodbye to the only real father figure I'd ever had...

What made it hard for me was that, the day before I had planned on stopping over to see them (my grandparents) after work... but I ended up getting out incredibly late (at the time, I worked evening shift at a local grocery store and helped close/clean the meat department)... that day I had been tasked with cleaning out the underground grease trap that our meat dept has before their floor drains lead to the main building piping... I ended up getting out of there around 10pm or so, covered in filth... I figured, heck with it, I work in the afternoon the next day, I'll go see em after work...

Halfway through my shift I got the call from my mother about him being in the hospital. I've never quite forgiven myself for that... I missed my last chance to see him alive and cognizant because I was "too tired" and "too dirty" to stop at their house, which was on the way HOME from work...

For anyone reading this, I beg you... never assume you will always have tomorrow... because one day, tomorrow never comes.

 

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I think that there is a lot of unresolved anger with death.
If you believe in God, at least you can fall out with God for a while.

 

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My cousin passed away recently, it was quite an affair. The family got together from all over the country. We ate, we drank and we laughed and boy did we laugh. We had a great time. It was unlike any funeral I had ever been to. It wasn't like my parent's funeral. It was a good time. We remembered my cousin and his life. We toasted him, celebrated his life and we remembered all the good times and wished him well. It was good. He was buried without pomp and circumstance and without pretense. I normally hate funerals. In my opinion, if you are going to have a funeral, that is the way to have a funeral.

 

My mother passed away last Christmas. I was sitting with her on Christmas Eve all day as she lay there unconscious on hospice watch with the nurses of the care center. I decided to go home that evening and get some sleep. But I was worried she'd pass while I wasn't there. When I came back around 7:15 AM she was still hanging on by a thread though totally unconscious. I told her it was ok to let go and to move on. That I'd be ok. In a matter of a minute she finally stopped breathing. I couldn't believe it. It was as if she was waiting for me to say goodbye. It's as if she was waiting for permission to go. I'm so glad I was there to help make it happen.

 

Sounds like an Irish funeral.
Many Irish funerals are conducted that way.
They call it the "wake".
Until recently, it was done with the corpse in attendance.
To make sure it was really dead.

Plus, the Catholic Church cannot be seconded in their treatment of death.
(open to argument of course)
They are brilliant at it, and many lapsed Catholics still attend scores of funeral masses.
You need some kind of ritual after a death, whether you believe in God or not.

 

The rate at which animals die is a reminder of how much we are ruled by our DNA.

 

I love this quote.

"Try to imagine a life without timekeeping. You probably can’t. You know the month, the year, the day of the week. There is a clock on your wall or the dashboard of your car. You have a schedule, a calendar, a time for dinner or a movie. Yet all around you, timekeeping is ignored. Birds are not late. A dog does not check its watch. Deer do not fret over passing birthdays. Man alone measures time. Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out." ― Mitch Albom

 

I like that...Really hits the nail on the head.

No offense... But, gotta say, at least for me... Creepy thread. : l

 

Indeed... it is something I'm trying to help my wife understand. Some days she gets absolutely frantic, and it annoys her to no end how stoically calm I am no matter the disaster going on around us... and it is all because I have accepted that what will be, will be... time is not something I am concerned with anymore; merely, I want to make sure I make the moment the best I can.

 

All of this is easier said than done, but that is the right attitude.

 

Like any good Catholic child, I rely on Zen Buddhist stories for consolation in the face of death:

 

How so, Bells. I never said that dying wasn't difficult, did I?

Oh, wait, are you referring to Captain Shit Disturber or me? :bugeye:

 

When I was a preteen I lost an aunt to cancer. We had moved across the country a couple of years before she was diagnosed and came back on vacation to visit. We of course stopped in to see her. After we had left, I remember becoming really sad as I realized that this would the last time that I would ever see her. Knew that we would not be back before she passed.

My Dad passed away when I was 19. He took a nap in his chair and never woke up (heart failure). I was living at home at the time and working a graveyard shift and sleeping myself in another room. I was awakened by my Mom trying to wake him up. We called for an ambulance, but there was nothing they could do.

Mom passed away in 2000 at the age of 83. She had been in a nursing home for a couple of years (Alzheimer's).

 

I thought the thread might be a place to discuss the issue, rather than it appearing on various threads.
That has been a miscalculation, and I ask that the thread be closed.
I am surprised that you would attack me in this way Trooper, instead of making your point to me personally.
Bells, as always you are self righteous, and looking for an opportunity to cause trouble.
Gremmie is quite capable of talking for himself, and doesn't need your superior moral input.
He is dying, not senile.

 

I find this predictable drama squabbling and power-tripping banal, to say the least. Also boring. Please try to do better, children, you dishonour the topic without good cause.

*

I consider death pretty much every day, both my own and others.

"Paint it Black"...I lost a girl friend to a telephone pole and too much alcohol and another friend to a heroin overdose when I was still very young. I built a beautiful motorcycle for a friend who then traded it in 1 week later for a Harley which he promptly drove over the 'high side' of a curve with his young wife on the back. They both died when they hit the trees. 1 week after we graduated high school, my friend Gus got shot in the back with a 'warning shot' by an overzealous rent-a-cop security guard who thought Gus was trespassing. Gus died at 18.


My abusive birth mother blew an aneurism due to her unaddressed high blood pressure and her incredibly foul temper and died at 55. I buried my dad after he tripped on a throw rug, hit his head on the dining room table, tore an artery in his brain and died. He knew the rug was a tripping hazard, he was way too fat and couldn't lift his feet an inch as he walked. I had been anticipating that phone call for quite some time before it came. No surprise, no tears. I had to tell the neurosurgeon to pull the plug on dad as he was brain dead by the time he was found. I tended to my step mother for 9 years as her mind rotted away in the nursing home. When she pulled her oxygen, quit taking her meds, eating and drinking, I told her that she was going to die if she did that. She gave me this really pissed - off look and turned away. I said goodbye mom and left. She died that night.

I held my 14 & 1/2 year old beagle/basset in my arms, told her how very much I loved her, thanked her for sharing her life with me as she died in the living room in our home with the whole family right there with her. 15 years later I held my black Lab mix in my arms with my son, told her how very much I loved her, thanked her for sharing her life with me as the vet gave her an overdose of barbiturate and she passed away.

I have cried much more over the loss of my dear canine companions than I did over my parents and friends. I still do. They were much closer to me, they loved me much more, they filled my life with love and joy. I never wanted that to end, I never wanted to lose them forever. I still miss them and want them back.

I have been diagnosed with prostatic acinar adinocarcinoma (that is cancer if you don't know that) staged T3cN0M0, Gleason 4+3 = 7. It was locally advanced when discovered so I got major surgery right away, started chemo 2 weeks later, 40 external beam radiation treatments and have been on chemo for a year and a half. I have another year of intermittent chemo to do yet, the last hit of chemo was 2 weeks ago.

I am in robust health, do/did all of the right things and have had the full run of contemporary treatments at a top notch medical facility so my life expectancy is pretty good as per the statistics. If I live 15 years they will say I will be "cured". I can still die from this cancer, however, so I get to think about this a lot. Being a Buddhist I know that life is like an old -time dot matrix printer ribbon - once, then done. There is no pie in the sky when you die, no heaven, gods or angels waiting to greet you. Your dead relatives will not be there to party with you. It will all just end. Fade to black and then nothing. Kind - of like getting hit with a general anesthesia only you do not ever wake up again and someone must do something with your body after.

The ashes of my deceased canine companions are here in my office with me. I will be cremated when I die. I have asked my son to mix my ashes with those of my dear dogs and then to scatter our remains along one of our favourite trails as that is where we live. That is where we have had our best of times hiking in the sunshine, playing fetch and swimming in the river. Pure joy that sparkles in the sunshine with the shake of river water after the fetch of the stick.

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I am here, now. I live in the present, enjoy every minute of every day as best I can. I treasure my family and friends as well as my time. I suck up every last little bit of enjoyment from every day as I am clear that this is all that there is.

Think I will go hug my Labrador and take her out for a run.