Being there for someone you love as they die....

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It is a life changing experience to be with someone you love as they take their final breaths. At christmas, Dad seemed tired but healthy, but by New Years Eve, he was saying that he just did not feel well. One week later, he called my brother to say he was in terrible pain, he could stand or lay down but could not sit. My brother took him to the ER where they gave him some pain medication and sent him home, with a referral for local doctor. Another week and another ER visit would pass before he actually got an appointment with the doctor. He was admitted to the hospital for testing, where they found cancer it seemed, everywhere they looked. His pain was being caused by advanced lung cancer that had moved into the bones and created a mass so large that it had cracked a verabrate in his back. Dad was made comfortable and transferred to the cancer center about 40 miles away, but there was little that they could do but try to control the pain. Dad's condition got worse very quickly and my brothers and I were at the hospital with him day and night. The sunday before he died, his doctors met with us to explain that there was nothing more they could do for him and recommended that we put him on 'comfort only' care. Knowing what Dad's wishes were, we sadly agreed to the doctors recommendation. We called the family in and made arrangements to transfer him to my brother's home under Hospice care, as he did not want to die in the hospital. As we were all surrounding him that Sunday evening, Dad leaned forward and reached out his hand and shook hands with everyone in the room and then he laid back and went to sleep. That would be the last movement he would ever make. They kept him on a morphine pump with automatically dispensed the correct amount at the right time around the clock. On Monday we took turns sitting with Dad, as the other siblings fought with the hospital personnel to get Dad released from the hospital, we knew we were running out of time to honor his last wishes and it seemed that everyone we talked to in the process, were in slow motion. Finally around 4pm, everything was in order and the transport team arrived to move him to my brother's house. Once settled there it seemed that Dad breathed easier, was calmer somehow, like he knew on some level that he was not in the hospital any longer. His bed was set up in the living room and my brothers and I camped out in there for the night, each of us waking every few hours to check on him. It was just after 8am the next morning when his breathing became faint, my youngest brother checked his heart rate and we stood by as he told us that Dad was gone. I had always heard stories of what happens when someone dies, sometimes they speak, see things, or make strange sounds, but in Dad's case there was none of those things, just silence, just peace. They say that the greatest fear we all have is the thought of dying alone and the greatest gift we can give to another is to be there for them at that time....I believe that is true! However, you cannot go through something like that without being changed in some way. For me, material things and working long hours for things, no longer had any meaning, the only thing that mattered in this life was people, helping people, showing you cared and spending time with them. Suddenly, life felt fragil to me and to this day, it still does and that was 3yrs ago today. Has anyone else ever been with a loved one as they died? How did that experience alter you?