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Friday, stopped for a small chat with a friend who was having lunch with a mutual friend at the senior center. Margaret had just returned from visiting a daughter and her family in another state.
Early in this morning, Margaret called 911 as told by a friend before church service. 11:00 am, Pastor announced she's home with the Lord.
Sudden death, difficult for family, friends. Reminder, cherish those in your life; led to
telephone my sister of heart, brother in another state.
The other day, had called my brother. Feeling uncomfortable as his wife and I can Always talk about something. He had nothing to say, told him, I didn't either. Lionel Richie song, I Just Called to Say I Love You.
My deepest sympathy to you. As we get older we lose more friends and family, and pets too. Then one day we're the one who's been lost.
I see two sides to the sudden death coin. One, it's a major shock to the system. Here at 10, gone at 11.
OTOH it can be a gift to the deceased. My mother, who lived way way past where she wanted to live at 95, often said, "Heart attack. Friend of the elderly." Fortunately she lived in their own home until the end.
My mother died of a massive stroke, I guess that was close enough to a heart attack but it brought a quick end to her struggles.
My father died at 91 after a difficult few months of hospital to nursing home to hospital to nursing home to hospital. I'd been assigned to go to Honduras or some such place by my Reserve unit. I told my C.O. about my father's condition and I was reassigned to home station.
I was visiting my father one Sunday afternoon--the middle weekend of my two week annual training, so the stars all aligned for this, fortunately--after visiting my mother. I was sitting in his hospital room as he snored away. And then he wasn't snoring any more. Just a little noise, perhaps the death rattle, and he was gone. I touched him and wished him Godspeed in his journey, then went out to the nurse's station and said, "Uhh. I think my father just died."
A blessing, finally, after his many many years of health struggles.
Later I asked my mother about grieving and grief. She said "I've been grieving for years." Watching her husband of 56 years decline into pretty rough shape like this was very painful and difficult.
My mother lived on for another 10 years. She was more than ready to depart long before that.
Heart attack, friend of the elderly.
These discussions for some reason bring to mind the TV show Star Trek. Mr. Spock's standard greeting was "Live long and prosper." I have to disagree with that philosophy.
It's not all about live long. I think it's more about Live Well.
And it's not all about prosper. That's always nice, but IMO it's more about Do Good In Your Life. What good deeds did you leave behind, after you're gone?
Sudden lights out? It can be a gift. It's hardest on the survivors who thought their loved one was boogieing along and would be doing so for many more years. All of a sudden BANG!
In the news a few days ago was a story about a woman who was making a commencement speech, or some speech, and she dropped dead then and there. Poof. You never know when you'll be Called Back.
I've been with two people when they died, and one shortly after. My father died of a heart attack on the kitchen floor. He lived for about 20 minutes after he first fell, in and out of consciousness and talking a bit with the paramedics. Then he went into sort of a seizure, his heart probably taking its final bow, and they kept working on him as they put him on a stretcher and carted him to the ambulance, but we knew he died there on the floor.
My mother said she was very tired after her dialysis and asked my brother and me to put her to bed. We did. I checked her at 11:30, she was sound asleep and breathing deeply. Woke up at 2:30, and she was dead. Head was warm, but hands were cold.
My boyfriend was incapacitated after a long, degenerative illness. He had asked for Pepsi earlier in the day, and then inhaled some of it. He sounded like he was breathing weird, so I called his palliative care doc who said it was from the carbonation and that it would clear itself. He fell asleep, and I noticed that he was breathing better and seemed to be in a deep sleep. I watched three episodes of a TV show sitting next to him, checking him each time.
After the third episode, I went around his bed to check his catheter bag, and I felt his hand. It felt cold but I checked and the other felt warm. He was still breathing normally. I held his hand and said, "You know, honey, if you have to go, just go." LITERALLY SECONDS LATER he took one breath, stopped. Took another, stopped. Took a third and then no more.
One of my mentors was twenty years older than I. She used a wheelchair and ran a halfway house. She lived in an isolated area on the prairie. When of her more dangerous clients ran away she called me and asked me to come sit with her for the evening.
I brought out dinner and we had a good, uneventful visit. As I was leaving something stopped me at the doorway and I went back in, hugged her, told her thank you for her friendship and that I loved her. It was just one of those spontaneous things.
Two days later she had died of an aneurism. I was thirty years old and that was my first lesson in learning to tell people we appreciate them while we have the chance. I've never forgotten that.
Honestly, I don't know whether a long, slow death or a sudden death is "better." Dead is dead. In the end, I don't think it matters. We are all going to go through grief no matter what.
Honestly, I don't know whether a long, slow death or a sudden death is "better." Dead is dead. In the end, I don't think it matters. We are all going to go through grief no matter what.
Neither is "better". You still lose the person you love. The grieving process may just be different. "Anticipatory grief", which I learned was a term when my fiance was dying, is very real. There's fresh grief when they die, but also relief, which of course can bring up guilty feelings. It's complicated.
My father died fast, on the kitchen floor, of a heart attack. It was unexpected, and some numbness came along with the shock. I really felt the deep grief about three months later. With my mother, it was a little easier because even though I didn't expect to find her dead THAT NIGHT, she was 91, showing signs of weakening, and she had made mention a few times that her friends and family (she was the oldest of four and outlived them all, her youngest brother dying two months before she did) were leaving and soon she would be going, too. It was sad to say goodbye, but not a shock, and I was grateful she didn't suffer, had a sound mind right to the end, and didn't deteriorate to the point of a nursing home before she left. I miss her, and sometimes that sense of loss comes on very strongly, but the grief was not as painful as either the shock of my father's death or the despair of my fiance's death because she had a long life and the best death one could hope for.
A psychic told me "Your mother closed the curtain herself", an image I rather like.
My brother's death was anticipated, but still very difficult to fathom. Death of a sibling is different from any other, I found.
One thing for sure, whenever or however it comes, you don't escape the grief of losing someone you love. It will come to you sooner or later.
I am 90,I moved to CT to be with family knowing end was near for all on Feb 2016,I have seen 18 deaths including my wife not much of me left.
Got my present on Dec 15,2021 from booster Moderna #2,crippled legs.
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