A fair fraction of obituaries claim that the diee died with his loving family at his bedside. First question: how long do they all sit there? Or is sitting deemed too disrespectful? Has one family member been designated as the one to call everyone and tell them “he’s about to go – better get over here”? Some doctor has been told to alert him … but if the diee is at home, the designated notifier is on duty 24 hours … for how many days? And he has to decide when to gather the clan? They’re not supposed to pack a lunch, so he needs to give them time to eat, and maybe get a shower, and you know how traffic is …
Yes, I’ve seen it more times than I care to remember. My aunt and brother flew into town as my dad was dying. He knew he was dying when he saw them. My aunt died in her living room with her family around her and died soon after her brother arrived from out of town.
Six years ago, my father-in-law was dying from cancer. He was on home hospice care, at my sister-in-law’s house, and he was bedridden for the last two days of his life. The evening that we knew the end was near, we were all there.
When it got to be around midnight, my wife sent me home (we live about a half-hour away from my in-laws), when he passed at around 2 a.m., but his two daughters (my wife and sister-in-law), his other son-in-law, and two of his three grandchildren were all there with him.
Thirty-five years ago, when my wife’s grandfather (her dad’s father) died, it was the result of a massive stroke; he was hospitalized, but on life support, with no chance for recovery. The doctors kept him on life support long enough for the family to gather – two of his sons, including my father-in-law, lived out-of-state; when the family made the decision to turn off life support, and let him go, they were all there with him.
My wife passed away at home with her father, her step-mother, and me at her bedside. I had gone upstairs to get some sleep while others stood by. They called for me when it was evident that she was close to passing.
I was in an adjacent room during the passing of an elderly mother, in her home & bed, surrounded by her three children. An unrelated onlooker, I was struck at the time by the peace of it all. Beautiful.
When my mother was dying, her four children gathered around. We were all there her last day. When evening came, we agreed on shifts, so she wouldn’t be left with just the hospice nurse and her aid. My sister took the first shift, i and the local brother went home to nap, and the out-of-town brother went to sleep in her other bed. My sister sat on her bed, held her hand, and sang to her. (My mom was unconscious, but the nurse thought she might be aware of touch or sound.)
She died during my sister’s shift. Is that “surrounded by family”?
I don’t remember what we put in the obit (except that i vehemently vetoed “peacefully”, as it was a pretty horrible death, all in all, although the last day wasn’t too bad.) i wouldn’t have vetoed “surrounded by family”. She didn’t die all at once, but over a couple of days. And she had 4 children and 2 sons in law there over that time period, usually at least 3 or 4 of us.
Some do. One of my aunts had a houseful of family: Both her surviving kids, two sisters, one brother-in-law, and probably half a dozen nieces and nephews (including me). Early during COVID, my dad had three of us. When my brother died, he wasn’t quite surrounded by family, but we were all outside the ER while the medical staff tried in vain to restart his heart.
ETA: The aunt in question was dying of cancer and was in constant pain. Her brother, the MD, refused to give her morphine, saying, “Morphine is addicting.” Never mind that she had hours to live, at most. Uncle John was a freakin’ idiot.
My MIL had her mother, her four siblings and their spouses (except the one that’s not married), her kids, spouses, several nieces and nephews, and an old friend at her bedside. There were about 20 people crammed into that hospital room.
It’s not unusual if there’s a big family and death is expected.
When my father died of a long battle with lung cancer, we were all in the room with him - my siblings, my mother, my aunt and uncle. It had been a very protracted death, with the hospice nurse coming each day of the last 3 days saying, “he won’t last the night” and the next day he was still breathing. On his last night, we gathered as a family and said the rosary at his bedside. When midnight came, my mother and aunt both cracked a bottle of beer (my mother never drank, except for the occasional sweet liqueur after dinner) and toasted him. Then he breathed his last and was gone.
When my mother died, she had her second major stroke. She was brain dead, and on life support. We made the decision to remove her from life support and were all there as they turned off the ventilator. All her children and her second husband and two sisters.
When my Dad passed, Mom and I were sitting at his bedside, where we had been for several hours.
Five years later, when Mom died, nobody was with her. My wife, daughter, and I had been there a couple of hours earlier, and we left to go home and eat supper. I was just getting ready to back to Mom’s room when I got the call that she had passed.
I will never not feel bad about not being with her when she took her last breath.
That was the case when my sister died. She held on until my wife and I could fly up to Anchorage, where she was in the hospice ward. Feverish, but still lucid, and we all talked and laughed about old times and cracked jokes with each other. Eventually, her pain med had to be amped up to the point where she was no longer really conscious, and she did indeed pass away surrounded by family; me, my wife, her husband and her three kids.
My mother died in the middle of the night. My father was asleep in the next room and the hospice nurse got him to my mother’s bedside with about two minutes to spare.
When my father died (in the hospital) one of my sisters was with him, and I just happened to call as he was passing.
My mother in law was on hospice. I’d just returned home from college classes, when my husband showed up to get me. My mother in law had asked for her mother, and mother in law’s daughter to come from 40 minutes away. I got there and found her intermittently conscious, and asking when and her mom, and her daughter would be there. As soon as they arrived, and she was aware they were there she died. It was my husband, his sister, and my mil’s mother.
My mother was in ICU, my brothr flew in from Vegas and they extubated her. And she died about 10 minutes later.
My dad was rushed to the hospital. My mom gave the go ahead and he died almost instantly. With his sister, her husband, and me and my husband.
My father in law died in a nursing home with only my husband in attendance. I didn’t get there quite in time.
My dad died semi unexpectedly with my sister and her family at his chairside (but not my mum). He was in a nursing home and deteriorating. I lived about 5 hours away and was told on the tuesday evening he was likely not to survive long enough for me to see him at Christmas (about two weeks away) so I tied some loose ends at work on the Wednesday and got permission to take Thursday and Friday off to go down. On Thursday afternoon my sister went to see him and while she was there he passed away.
My mum’s death was much faster but also better predicted, she went to her GP for some tests on Monday, at the time our biggest concern was that she might need to go into a nursing home from her sheltered housing. The next day the staff at the sheltered housing were concerned about her and asked my sister to take her to the GP, knowing she had just been she acalled the GP who had just got the test results and told her to call an ambulance, further tests at the hospital and (late) that evening I got a call to say she wouldn’t live much longer. I drove down first thing in the morning and spent the rest of the day with her (and my sister with other family coming in at times) by about 7pm she was unconcious and we were told she was unlikely to regain conciousness and would probably die in the night. We discussed it and decided the best thing was to leave he and get some sleep. Got a call at about 2:30am that she had passed away. (we did do to the hospital briefly at that point to say goodbye)
And it can take a while. My sister and I spent 2-3 days almost uninterruptedly in our mother’s hospital room while she was in her final coma, but we figured, there we were, we’d see it through.