Being a private person, and losing the love of my life just days ago, I am reaching out for answers from whoever has spoken words to their dying loved one that they now regret.  After six years of living courageously with cancer, and hardly ever showing his physical or emotional pain, my husband is now gone – and the last words I spoke to him will forever haunt me.  I said what I believed I was supposed to say at the time but his reaction will haunt me forever.  The last few days he was only awake for moments at a time and aware of me.  There was always a “thank you” after even a small piece of ice, and always three kisses whenever I placed my lips on his, right up to the early morning that he died. 

Often while he was sleeping I would tell him it was OK to go when it was time.  That I would be fine. That I loved him so much and always would.  The last few days I read often softly outloud, 3 prayers while he slept – but maybe only his eyes were closed.  A catholic prayer, A protestant prayer, an American Indian prayer.  The day before I asked a Hospice Chaplain to pray with me at his bedside.  The Chaplains voice was loud and my husband awoke with a frightened look on his face.  My first guilty memory.  He looked so scared and his mouth moved trying to desperately to speak.

Hello to Everyone

I read your post FloridaSunset and wanted to assure you that you did nothing out of the ordinary when faced with death.  You should not feel any guilt and that you did what you felt was right.

I understand where the guilt may come from.  I felt guilty too when my husband died.  I felt guilty that I never realized he may die within the time line they gave him, a few days.  He seemed fine the day before he died and you always have hope that the doctors are probably exaggerating for your sake.  So, yes I still feel guilty I did not talk to him as you did.  When I realized he was dying, he was incoherent.  However, they say the last thing that stays the same before death is hearing.  So I have come to an agreement with myself that he heard all the love I had for him for 44 years. 

Grieving for loved ones and accepting it is the hardest journey anyone can take.  It is always with you but the hurt lessens with time.  It has been a little over a year now since Avery died and I still feel the pain some days like it was yesterday.  Understand that grief takes twists and turns that you never realize until you go through it.  There is no time frame for grief.  I have fought with this time frame myself.  I should not be crying now!  I should be at this place in my life.  But it doesn’t work that way!  We are too hard on ourselves, as I have been, and have finally realized that after a year! 

I have been fortunate with Virtual Hospice as it helped me through the grieving process by sharing my thoughts with everyone here.  We all share your grief as we have been walking the same path.

Regards

Jane

Hello & Thank You to all those who so quickly responded.  I’ve now moved from crying to numbness.  ? Normal I Guess ?

Your words of comfort were so welcome at the moments they were needed most.  I am still struggling to imagine other reasons his last moments were so full of fear and trying to accept it might not have been my fault.

Dear FloridaSunset

My VH name is Ekim.  I have been a “resident support” and “spiritual care” volunteer at or local hospice for several years now and have observed scores of people coping with the experience of dying.

First of all, my sincere condolences for your loss.  Secondly, your story has touched me deeply to my soul.  Somehow, it resonates with me even though I have not shared your experience.  I am not a trained professional of any kind.  I am a simple person offering compassion.  Everything that I say here is anecdotal, not scientific, so please discount it readily, if you choose to.

Although I could share dozens of stories to show the variety of responses in the final moments, I will instead layout a simplistic observation.  I hope that it brings you comfort.

I have seen three broad categories of people experiencing their final moments:  I will define them as follows:

• The Expediters    In my experience and observation, these people make up only a tiny percentage of the total.  These people have decided that “now is the time” and they are ready to pass over to the other side.  I recently sat with a lady who was a holocaust survivor.  She had indicated that she was ready to “go”.  I knew this to be true because she refused to open her mouth when I tried to feed her some oatmeal and she blew bubbles through the straw into the water as I tried to give her something to drink.

• The Accepters   In my experience and observation, these people make up the vast majority of the total.  They don’t necessarily want to “go”, however they accept the inevitable with grace and in the most part have a very peaceful death.

• The Fighters   In my experience and observation, these people make up only a tiny percentage of the total.  They fall into two categories, a) those that want to suck every second out of the time that they have on earth and b) those that genuinely fear death, fear the unknown.  I apologize in advance for my presumptiveness, but I am guessing that your husband fell into the later category.

- ekim