We have all seen the Hollywood versions, where, in their last breath, the victim mutters some final inspiring words as the SO/friend/family member sobs and says,“Don’t leave me.”
So, I want to hear from anyone who has actually sat beside someone as they died, either in a hospital or at home or on a battlefield etc. Did the person know they were about to die? Were they calm or in a panic? Do you remember what their last words were? Was it unexpectd or known it was coming? Be as descriptive as posisble.
I was once asked to help out with a member of my shule (synagogue) who was dying of cancer. He was in his apartment, and his wife, son and a nurse were there. They called me and asked if I could stay overnight. The son was a physician’s assistant, and he was giving his father morphine shots as needed. The morphine would wear off every two hours or so, and he (the dying man) would become uncontrollable until he got the next shot. I was there to help hold him down until the shot was given and he relaxed.
The whole thing was very quick. One day, the man came to morning services with a neck brace on - he said he had been having severe neck pain, and the doctor told him to wear the brace. He was dead 6 weeks later.
I’ll never forget how his wife was whispering to him while he was on his deathbed, and his son told her, “Mom - you don’t have to whisper. You’re not going to wake him.” I was relieved in the morning, and the gentleman died that afternoon.
I had another close friend who died (a young man) of liver cancer in a hospice. He battled the cancer for a year, it went into remission, and it came back and killed him a few months later. He knew he was dying, and he even had time to day goodbye to all his friends before he lost it (mentally). He spent his last 10 days in hospice; the last 5 days he was in a coma.
My mother died of lung cancer. Yes, she smoked, like a chimney. She went out comatose, drunk on morphine and oxygen deprivation. No last words.
My mother-in-law died of massive internal septic shock; she’d gotten one of those operations where they staple the stomach to reduce its size, right? Well, she developed complications – a pocket of septic infection, internally – and when it finally burst, it released ghod knows what into her abdominal cavity. Unfortunately, this seems to have happened in the middle of the night, because nobody realized anything was wrong until he couldn’t wake her up the next morning; she was delirious.
She lived about thirty hours after that, and never regained consciousness. There was plenty of “don’t leave me,” but this was provided entirely by the living.
In my mother’s case, she’d been fighting cancer off and on for some four years. I think she finally realized she wasn’t going to beat it this last time, but only right before she died. And even then, she was talking tough all the way up until she lost consciousness the last time.
In my mother-in-law’s case, she never knew what hit her. She went to sleep feeling fine, never woke up, and was dead thirty hours later.
My brother died of cancer. He was as close to peace as possible when he died. He looked at my sister and sister in law (his wife), shrugged his shoulders (the Mikey shrug, it was his gesture - it is comforting that even loaded with morphine, the last thing we saw was Mikey and not the drugs) and died.
Most of my family was around my grandfather as he died. He had cancer all over, and had been in a semi-coma for a few days. The last coherent thing he said was to me. He said, nearly weeping, “I’m so tired of this. I don’t want to feel like this any more.”
Three days later, he was in his hospice bed, all of us standing over him, listening to his slow, labored breathing. At around 10:30, he took a breath, and a minute later, when he had not exhaled, my uncle and I looked at each other, nodded, and I quietly got the nurse to let her know he had passed. We all got to say our goodbyes.
My father died very suddenly from a heart attack at 50. In fact, I was in the hospital waiting room for 45 minutes before my mom told me he had died. He had no idea what hit him. When I finally saw him, I swear he had a contented smile on his face, like he was napping. I kept waiting for him to snore, roll over, and reach for the remote. The last thing I said to him was “Be good,” which is sort of like “See ya” between me and my dad. That was 2 days earlier. I don’t remember the last time I said “Thank you”, and it for sure was years and years since I said “I love you” to him. I missed a chance to say the same thing to my grandfather.
When my grandmother had her stroke, I made certain to tell her I appreciated everything she did for me and taught me, and that I loved her. She was pretty out of it, but her eyes showed she understood what I had said to her. She knew I felt bad about not telling my dad and grandfather, and when she passed, I kissed her forhead and asked her to tell them I missed them, and to tell them about my boy, who unfortunately never got to meet my dad and grandfather.
I was in the Marine Corps. I and a Sergeant were giving emergency CPR to an older man who had had a heart attack. He was unconsious the whole time. He died while we were working on him, never opening his eyes, never saying anything. His son was standing about 10 ft away.
My grandpa, comatose, no conversation. The only way we knew he was gone was his chest stopped moving.
I would have to imagine the last words he uttered were something about going home, as that’s what he would wake up talking about during the weeks prior to his coma.
Happy
I worked in a hospital and I’ve seen sick people die. For the most part, they’re not responsive to what’s going on around them. The breathing becomes more shallow and irregular, and finally they take one last gasp and die.
My grandfather called out the name of my grandmother (she had died several years earlier) just before he died.
I was with my mom when she died of cancer of the liver. I don’t think any of us knew she was going to die exactly when she did. I mean, she was very sick, and I went to visit, and she was throwing up stuff you’d not normally see, so I called the ambulance. We just thought we were going to the hospital again. It was her last ride.
I don’t think she was in a panic, she was so medicated. But her breathing got erratic, and she started having what I later learned was the “death rattle”. At this point, I think my brother and sister and I were more in a panic, wanting her to be out of her misery. They told us that she was going to die, and all we could do was wait.
We were gathered around her on the bed, and I was holding her hand, and the last thing I said to her was “Squeeze my finger if you’re in there!” And she did. And then she let go, and it was all over.
I can’t remember the last thing she said, or when. As a matter of fact, it was such a traumatic event for me that I can’t even remember what day it was. My brother has to remind me every year. I have an inexplicable mental block about it. I hope you don’t think badly of me, but I really don’t want to remember how sad it was watching her get sick and die. It was awful for her, it was awful any way you want to look at it. Cancer is an ugly way to die.
My grandmother that she had an painless but inoperable brain tumor; when it was found she had only days to live, just enough time for family to start flying in to say goodbye. When I got there she couldn’t talk anymore, but she smiled when I walked into the room and was obviously overjoyed to have the whole family there.
I was able to hug her and tell her I loved her, and look into her eyes. My grandfather had died in in 1951, so all that I knew of him came from my father’s childhood memories and from the wife that never stopped loving him. Just about the last thing I said to her was "You’re going to see Elmer soon. " When I said that, a tear welled up, but she never stopped smiling. She fell asleep in the night.
Calm, on morphine for pain management. Drifting in and out of sleep.
He said either “dink” or “tursty”.
We knew. I don’t think he knew. He had Leukemia and got an aspergillas (sp?) infection in the hospital. We knew when they decided to take him of chemo and put him on the morphine pump what that meant.
Oh and I wasn’t beside the “deathbed” I was holding my son when he died.
And even though I remember the details quite vividly. I don’t feel inclined to be particularly descriptive. It was heart breaking, phyiscally wrenching agony and at the same time it was as private (in our home) peaceful, loving goodbye as we could give him.
I watched my dad die of lung disease. It was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen, even more so because he refused to be given any drugs. They simply gave him more oxygen to try to make him comfortable. I missed the exact moment of death because, I just couldn’t stay and watch.
It made me a firm believer in euthanasia.
AbbySthrnAccent-I’m looking at my son right now, and I just can not imagine going through that with him. I’m gonna go give him a big hug when I’m done typing this.
I’m depressed now.
I did 3 weeks in the terminal cancer ward of my hospital. One guy came in with lymphoma (and other things, but it was his legs I remember). About 50 ish. On Friday one week he broke down while I was in the room – scared of dying and distraught over the inconvenience he was being, he didn’t like the level of care he needed.
I gave him my usual “if you weren’t here there’d be somebody else we’d be taking care of just as much, so you’re really no trouble for us” while the nurse councellor came (despite their name they council patients, not nurses :)).
Monday, he’d been moved into a palliative care room and was unconcious. Tuesday, I was helping a nurse give him a bedwash. While we were doing it his breathing got very faint. When we were done the nurse took a closer look at him and said “Y’know, I don’t think he’s with us any more.”
They got the doctor, zipped him in to a body bag and I took him down to the mortuary.