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Finally, peace for them. I'm sorry about the loss of your parents.
My dad had a bad year before he died. Mom became increasingly ill in her last year, but was still walking talking, and going to the supermarket every week. She had a massive stroke, never regained consciousnesses and died a week later. I'm so thankful that she didn't suffer.
I think that feeling relief in this situation is completely normal and understandable. My mom also was 91, with dementia and having had many small and a few moderate strokes. The last 3 months had to be in a nursing home because we could not have taken care of her. She had a living will and had expressed her desire to have no life support whatever. We tried through all this not to "medicalize" her care. We knew what was happening, so no scans, studies, blood tests, hospitalizations, etc. Just palliative care. Hospice supported us in this and took excellent care of her while she was in the nursing home and for a few months before. When she lost the ability to swallow, we knew it would be 4 or 5 days to death, because no one can live without food and water, and she had expressly written NO TUBES. It was a peaceful death, no pain (as far as we could tell.) She had not been aware or in her "right mind" for some months at the time of death, and it was indeed a relief when she died. We believe that she has been restored in death, and that it is a far better reality than what she was experiencing here. So yes, we are relieved that she did finally die. But even if one does not believe in a continued existence, it is a good and merciful thought that does not want someone who is loved to suffer when there is no hope of continued, meaningful life.
Both my parents died within the last few months, my mother just a couple of months ago. I loved them and do miss them but the actual passing has been a relief.
They both died a long slow death basically because the miracle of modern medicine was keeping them alive but in a slow and agonizing deterioration that was very difficult for the whole family to deal with the last few years. Helping care for them in their elderly age, dealing with one sad stressful phone call or email after another about the latest problem was very difficult.
I guess everyone truly does deal with mourning differently, but for me, since their passing I feel like a huge weight has been lifted.
We all have to deal with the loss of our parents at some point in our lives unless they died when we were too young to remember them and I only offer my own experience here as one point of view.
I understand how you feel. My dad had Alzheimer's and then bone cancer. It was not a pain free peaceful ending. We just saw it as his suffering was finally over. I do miss him of course, but he always said, that one should not carry on and mourn or even visit a grave after someone died. Continue living and think of the good times.
I understand how you feel. My dad had Alzheimer's and then bone cancer. It was not a pain free peaceful ending. We just saw it as his suffering was finally over. I do miss him of course, but he always said, that one should not carry on and mourn or even visit a grave after someone died. Continue living and think of the good times.
I am sorry for your loss and understand your feeling of relief. Lost my Dad to cancer last year and the last four months of his life was not what I think he would have wanted. I don't understand why we have a problem with helping people pass on; why make them suffer to the very end?
A beloved uncle passed away from metastatic cancer, and I think I scandalized all of his extended family who was there because I was laughing and upbeat at the viewing/funeral. I was heartbroken that he passed - he had made some changes in his life (remarrying) and that had opened him up to so many new things. I felt like I was watching a rebirth, and I was so happy for him. But to see it cut short by such suffering...
By the time he passed, the cancer had eaten away some of his bones so that he was in constant pain. When the nurses came to turn him in his bed, despite being doped up on maximum morphine and mostly comatose, this guy who was one of the most stoic people I have ever known STILL moaned in pain. He had been ailing for so long and we all had begged him to go to the doctor, but he'd avoided it as much as he could. By the time he did, it was too late. The doctors basically said they could not understand how he remained upright for so long given how sick he was.
We buried him on a gorgeous day. I was drained and saddened but so so so relieved. And yeah, I was laughing and chatting with people at the funeral. In retrospect, I would have tried to be more sober out of respect for others' feelings, but by that point, I was also weirdly happy that he was no longer suffering. I've been in attendance at the death of quite a few people, but nothing came close to his death in terms of how horrific it was. To see that level of sustained suffering finally relieved kind of made my mood swing in the exact opposite direction it had been in. I felt almost a little drunk, even though I had nothing to drink. (It could have had something to do with sleep deprivation too, now that I think about it.)
Because of my own weird reaction, I've learned never to judge how others react to a death. You cannot imagine what is going on inside their heads.
I'm sorry about your parents. Your reactions and feelings are perfectly natural. Of course you loved them, and you miss them, but you also didn't want them to suffer, nor do you want yourself and your family to suffer with them.
The ideal thing would have been that they had never become sick in the first place, but you know that's not realistic.
Be kind to yourself, and know you are not the only one with this experience.
I appreciate the heartfelt thoughts and support for not feeling too bad they have now passed on. The dying process was worse to deal with than the actual death and funeral and aftermath.
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Originally Posted by texdav
Sorry for your loss but I do take it they were given a choice to be treated or not.
Yes, they did have that choice. They had said earlier they wouldn't want a lot of treatment, but when the end times came, they seemed to want to hang on to every last minute and we supported whatever they wanted and got them the best care possible.
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