Last Words/thoughts?

[hello123]

Sorry for posting so soon after my other topic. I've read in the past people talking about this but it never applied to me because I'd never think about it. I was watching a U.K programme called 'spooks', the agent was stabbed and shes slowly dying, describing what she wanted and how shes feeling (my face is going cold), and I couldn't stop crying and being sick thinking about what happened when my dad was dying. He had come back from work early and collapsed at the doorstep, the neighbour saw he had fallen and was lying there (breathing, I think), she bought towels for the blood and sat with him. I've never spoken to her about it, one day I'd like to, but I wonder if he said anything? What he was thinking? How he felt? I wish I was there SO badly, it will always haunt me.

[niamh]

hi hello123,

no need to apologise, post as often as you want or need to!!

I can relate to what you wonder so much. My Dad went into the bathroom in the hospital around 3am and just dropped. I hate that he was completely on his own, I always wonder did he know at that moment what was happening, how did he feel, did he know he was about to leave me and Mom all alone. I wonder if he felt lonely, if he was scared (my Dad was never scared of anything). Then I wonder too if he saw this bright light and feel the love and peace people talk about and I wonder if he just didn't want to come back, that the "light" was nicer than life on earth. I guess I think like that becuase of hearing about people who come back from that moment and wonder why my Dad didn't, did he have a choice or not.

I find I sometimes have this intense overwhelming pity for him in those moments, that nobody at all was there with him, that he wasn't given the chance to say goodbye to us, that he was just snatched away without any choice. As hard as it is, my friends have been through it, I'd love to have had the chance to hold him, hug him in those last moments. I hate that my last memory of seeing him alive is him stuck on a trolley in the corridor of the ER being given morphine for the pain.

I'm sure your neighbour would be more than happy to talk to you if you need to talk to her. Maybe your Dad did say something to her. I'm sure it's hard to approach her about it, not knowing whether or not you'll get any more information.

((hugs)) and love to you

Niamh

[Spika]

I think those last moments are especially difficult for those who are left behind. We are left to wonder what the people we loved most were going through. Even though my dad's circumstances were different from both of yours, we never told him that the doctor gave him only 5 more days max, and then about 3 days before he died, he lost his ability to speak. I wonder all the time what he wanted to say but couldn't, and I like naimh, also have an intense overwhelming feeling of pity. I have never had a stronger desire to hear people's thoughts than I did when my dad couldn't talk anymore. I wish I could understand what it was like for him.

But hello123,I agree with naimh. I think that neighbor would probably be more than happy to tell you what happened. And you might feel better knowing. But you should definitely prepare for anything, just in case.

[hello123]

Thank you for both of your replies. Dying alone seems so scary but then at the same time we all die alone don't we? I'm sure they wouldn't have felt alone or scared, because atleast they had us in their hearts some people have nobody. I guess we'll never know and the more we think about it, the more we are tormenting ourselves. My friend who's dad has suddenly died in his early stages of cancer speaks so positively of his death and it seems she is coping so much better, thinking of things like this makes us feel helpless.

[niamh]

It does seem a little scary but I too wonder then about the afterlife, when you hear so many stories of people who've come back,had NDEs, people who were "met" by their loved ones or just saw their loved ones right before they came back to life, maybe it's not so scary and lonely, maybe because we don't know it seems that way to us.

I go back and forth all the time. I hear too how people talk about their loved ones somehow just being at peace in those last seconds, to me its like they must be getting comfort and peace from somewhere outside our world because I think without it people couldn't be a peace leaving everyone behind, they must know more than us right at that moment.

Try not to compare yourself to your friend hon, everyone deals so differently and what's hard for you may be "ok" for her but maybe something thats "ok" for you is hard for her. It's very easy to make assumptions without really know what's going on in someone's head. Just know there is nothing wrong with your questions and what you wonder, I think it's just part of grief, part of our brains trying to process the unthinkable.

((hugs))

Niamh

[pmpupdamike]

I am so sorry for your loss, 123. I can only imagine what you must be going/went through. I am a recent member to this forum, and I have noticed some conversation regarding "signs" supernatural or otherwise. I personally do not know what to make of that, in reference to my own loss, but I can share, that if you have faith, or the personal belief, that your father's spirit is at rest, then perhaps, the correlation can be made, that peace does indeed surround him. Perhaps, he realizes even now, (if your belief is that of an afterlife)that he was lucky to have a caring neighbor at his side, and a loving daughter who keeps his memory alive.

[hello123]

pmpupdamike, thanks for your reply, it is nice to read something positive that he was lucky. I am sorry for your loss and I hope you can think positively like this

[pmpupdamike]

it is hard! No doubt you understand. I think, part of my own healing process stems with the desire to want to help others. Perhaps, from another vantage point, it might be perceived as running away from my own pain, but I think that too cynical of a thought. I try to remain positive, even when the world forces me otherwise. I try to remind myself, of how much love/life there is around me, and it gets me by. But, I do have moments, this morning, as with many mornings, on my way back from dropping my daughter off to school, I was consumed by an immense weight of sadness. I stopped to get a bagel, from my favorite shop. I was lucky enough to have met, a charming couple, with a baby on the way. They are about the same age, I was, when I had my eldest daughter, who is now 10. I could not help but to marvel at thier contagious happiness, and I realized that the world does work in mysterious ways. Perhaps, thier presence, was a "sign" of what I am not sure, but what ever it was, it helped me to understand that life does indeed work in strange ways, and small little encounters serve to remind of how much happiness there actually is.

[Babypod]

I have had the same thoughts about Grandma. She wasn't alone - some family members were with her - but she knew. She spoke to the pastor on Friday and told them she was scared to go. The last words she said were on Friday and they were to my mom and my aunt, "Don't Cry" was what she said. Then for the next two days she fought it so hard - but she couldn't talk. I know she looked right at me on Saturday when I was wetting her lips and her mouth. She was at home on hospice - but it just hurts so bad because it feels like we didn't do anything to help her. She was such a fighter - I so wish we had given her antibiotics.

But in those last couple of days (she passed away monday morning) - what was she thinking? Was she scared? Did she hear us when we spoke to her? It haunts me to think she was scared. It haunts me that she might have been thinking, "Take to the hospital - I don't want to die right now" when all we did was say our goodbyes. I feel we failed her so much. I know she knew the end was near - she knew that when she spoke to the pastor on Friday.

It is hard either way.

Angel

[Spika]

Babypod - those are definitely some frightening thoughts. I have had thoughts like that many times with my father. Like I said previously, he too lost his ability to speak during the last days. I wonder so often what he wanted to say but couldn't. I remember him talking to us all for the last time. Who knew it would have been the last time? None of us.

So often I wish that there would have been more information provided to us about what was going on. If the doctors thought he had a year to live then why didn't they ever tell us so? Why couldn't they tell us why he couldn't talk anymore or what was going on in his body. It was such a helpless feeling seeing him suffer. Well anyway, thats not the topic of the discussion here but nevertheless those thoughts always go hand in hand.