Ever known it was the last time you were going to see someone? I do, it's Saturday.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

My grandfather has been in very poor health for the past few years, and my step grandmother called the other night and said that he has started really declining, the tone was that it would be weeks not months. To be perfectly honest, I wish it would hurry up, my mom is ready, I’m ready and above all he’s ready. For the past 2 years, all he ever says is “I’ve lived a good life.” and “She takes good care of me.” in reference to my SGM. Like his dying will is to make sure I get those two facts. Got it. I’ve told him Goodbye the past few times I’ve seen him, just to be sure but something tells me this is really the last one.

Wow. I didn’t think I’d get emotional typing this, but I am. Shit.

Anyway, anybody have a similar experience?

2

At my sister’s wedding. The groom’s mother was terminally ill and only had a couple of months to live at the time of the wedding. She was only 49 years old. She danced and sang and had a great time. It was a wonderful day.

When I was leaving, I went around and said good bye to everyone in the room. When I said good bye to her, a look passed between us that is difficult to describe. We both knew that it was the final good bye.

She was a very special lady and I wish her grand kids would have gotten the chance to know her.

Haj

3

When my mom was dying, I would go down to her house on weekends, and go back to the ATL to work during the week. The last time I saw her alive was on a Sunday night, just before I left. I had a strong feeling I might not see her again, so I said “Bye, Mom. I love you.” She was awake, and smiled and said she loved me too.

She died the next Friday, a few hours before I would have left to come home again.

4

The last time I saw any of my grandparents we knew it would be the last time. Both of my paternal grandparents had alzheimers and lived with my family for quite a while during the phase. My paternal grandmother got so bad that we had to move her into a nursing home (it just about killed my dad). The last time I saw her she was walking around with a feather duster and dusting the rec room. I said ‘Hi Grandma!’, she said to my dad…“I’m going to have to sell this goddamn house, it’s just to big to clean!”. I knew it was over then. I told her I loved her with everything I had in my heart. She died within the month…(I’d long since moved out of state). My paternal grandfather soon followed. He was the greatest man to ever live…besides my father.

My maternal grandmother lived with me since I was 9, I don’t want to go into that story for my own good. :frowning:

-K

5

Sorry this is going to happen to you, it isn’t easy.

When I was starting high school my grandma had a stroke. When we found out my mom loaded my sister and me into the car and we went to the hospital. We had a decent amount of time in the car before getting to our destination, and I remember asking my mom a similar question. I asked her what you’re supposed to say when it might be the last time you see someone; she said she didn’t know.

Looking back now, I realize that it’s a really tough question. My mom was getting to ready to lose her mom, I asked her what to do in a situation I’d never been through before, and she was just as uncertain as I was.

I thought about all the things that I would do at the hospital once we arrived. I didn’t know my grandma was going to die, because she’d had a stroke before, so I thought she might recover from it. I thought that I would be able to sit at her bedside and talk to her and hear some important piece of wisdom. When we finally got to the hospital my grandma was pretty much out of it. She was drugged up, and I don’t even know if she could tell what was going on. She did wake up for a couple of minutes at one point when I was around. I took that opportunity to say the last thing I ever said to her, which was to tell her that I’d gotten a part-time job, and that I loved her. I think it seems like a dumb thing to say now, so let that just be an example that no one really knows what to say. Let them know that you care about them, and see if you can do anything to make them more comfortable, or keep them company.

Whenever I leave a close relative or finish a phone call with one, I will tell them I love them. That way, if anything bad happens to either of us, the last words they ever heard from me was that I loved them.

Hang in there.

6

I had to do that with my dad a few years ago. He had Parkinson’s and was going downhill rapidly. I lived clear across the country, and went out for a final visit, and after telling him I loved him and walking away down the hall with him calling my name out behind me was about the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

In fact, it was so hard I ended up going back when he really was on death’s doorstep (had a stroke and couldn’t swallow any more). So I was actually there with him when he died. It was the most moving and powerful experience of my life.

But saying goodbye to him that time was harder.

I’ll be thinking of you. Matters of life and death are never easy, but he’ll know you care, which is what matters most.

7

Saying goodbye to someone you love is so hard. And it doesn’t really matter if you know it is coming…you think you are preparing yourself, that you know it is happening, that this will help you be “just fine” WHEN it happens. My personal experience says that there is really nothing you can do to prepare yourself to “deal” with it in advance.

I lost my mother to cancer some years ago. I loved her. My life is incomplete without her in it. And you know, it will ALWAYS be incomplete without her in it. I know that when I am seventy years old, and something happens…I will think “Dear God in Heaven, I wish my mom was here to tell me…whatever.”

Long story, but I’ll spare you, skip the earlier details.

When mom was finally out of options, and we/she had done all she could to stay with us, I moved in with mom and dad, took care of her, and watched her die. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do. BUT…it was also the BEST thing I ever did.

Loving someone means that having the time to say goodbye is a gift. It is the ability to forgive if you need to, be forgiven if it needs to happen…express thanks if it is appropriate…but most of all, it is the ability to say “I love you, and I am so glad God put you in my life. I have to let you go, but you will always live in my heart, because I LOVE YOU!”

I worked ten hour days during the last six weeks of my mom’s life on earth. I had help during the day for mom, then went home and took care of her the rest of the time. I got little, sometimes NO, sleep. I don’t know how I got through it, but the truth is that during that six weeks I never once fell asleep at my desk, got cranky or wept uncontrollably at odd moments. This was not me, it was God giving me strength. Because I am here to tell you, I sure didn’t have that kind of strength myself. Not even remotely.

And through it all, I was (I thought) “processing” the fact that mom was dying. I was “working through” losing her. Honestly, I was working it hard. I went to the funeral home and picked out a casket and worked out the basic details of her memorial service. I started getting the facts of what it was going to mean when mom died (financially) for dad, to make sure I could ease the situation for him as much as I could. I did everything I could, and I was quite rational about it. After all, I was certain that I as an emotionally healthy person was able to DEAL with this whole nightmare. Because…well, that is what emotionally healthy people do, right? Right.

Then, one day, mom died. And I was there, and I had this sort of bewilderment inside…and I realized that although my mind knew that mom was dying, my heart never really accepted it. So all of the “preperation” I had done was useless since my heart wasn’t convinced that my mom would ever REALLY leave me.

Sometimes, I admit, I am STILL not sure she ever left me forever. And I know she really didn’t, that everything she was and everything she taught me won’t go away, and her love lives on in my heart and in my…ME. But you know, there are times when things happen and take me aback…and make me realize that my heart is not convinced that my mom is never coming back. My mind knows she is dead, my heart isn’t so sure. And I don’t think I am crazy, either…since I have never been into self-delusion and that sort of thing.

Sheesh, I didn’t mean to go on like this, but I guess my point is…do what you need to do to make sure your Grampa knows how you feel about him and how much he has meant to you…and that he made your life better just because he was in it.

Not for him, but for you. So you can let him go gently into the good night, knowing that you didn’t wait too long to give him a loving goodbye. Letting a loved one go is more about you than it is about them, in the long run.

Saying goodbye is as much about your own peace as it is about the peace of the person you are saying goodbye to.

I am so sorry that this is happening to you. I will be praying for your peace and comfort…and for your Grampa’s… I hope that is not something that makes you uncomfortable.

My Love,

Cheri

8

I’m at this stage with my paternal grandpa. He’s the last surviving grandparent in my family – his wife, my grandma, died of a heart attack some years ago; my maternal grandmother died of Alzheimer’s about 15 years back (when I was 10 – I never knew her, because the Alzheimer’s took her mind before I was old enough); and my maternal grandfather died of injuries sustained in WWII in 1949. So, he’s really the other half of the only grandparents I’ve ever had.

He has bone cancer. He’s apparently had it for three years or so, but they didn’t discover it until last year, when a chest x-ray came back with signs of lung cancer – the bone cancer had metastasized to the point that it was more or less throughout his body. His daughter (an aunt I do not know well due to my parents’ divorce) moved her family down from Wisconsin to be near him as he dies. He’s currently under Hospice care, which as most people know is pretty much “it”. He lives about an hour away, but between work and school and life, we just don’t have the time to get up there. I saw him last in March, and I may not see him again.

When he goes, I’ll be left with my mom and my brother. My other family is third cousins in Indiana, on my mom’s side; an estranged father; and said father’s brother and sister and all their kids.

9

I feel for you, Bruce_Daddy, more than you can know.

When my grandmother was dying, I tried to visit her every couple of days. One afternoon, I stopped in after work, and she was propped up in bed, very alert and very cheerful. We talked for a long time - reminiscing, talking about my daughter (who was then about two years old) and in general wandering down memory lane.

Then she got all quiet and just sat there looking at me. Her gaze was so intense it almost made me uncomfortable. She finally said, “I’m glad you came tonight. I was hoping I’d have a chance to say goodbye.”

One of the hardest things I ever did was to walk out of her room that night. I came back in the morning, and found her body.

Dammit, do you know how hard it is to type through tears?

10

My recent visit back to NJ a couple of months ago was probably the last time I’ll see my grandfather. He’s 85 and diagnosed with Alzheimers. When we said goodbye, we exchanged a look that told me we both know it was likely for the last time. Neither of us can afford to flit bac and forth across the country too often, and he’s getting a bit more senile everytime I talk to him.

It’s odd…he tells jokes constantly…but since he can’t remember telling them, he tells the same ones over and over. I suppose if you absolutely must go insane, there are worse ways than to degrade into a happy forgetfull joke-teller. Still, it sucks to see him degrade like that, especially knowing it will get worse.

11

Recently, my mother told me I’d better go and see grandma, that she was fading. (Grandma has Alzheimers and hasn’t recognized me in years, so I rarely went to see her).

When I went there, she was completely unresponsive. All her physically energy seemed to be devoted to taking her next breath. She was unaware of everything.

I was unprepared for what hit me. I was overcome with sadness. Mainly for seeing her, this proud woman, in such a state. She was a shell of her former self. When my mother left the room to find a nurse, I pulled up close, told her I loved her, thanked her for all that she did for me, and told her it was OK for her to go, that we were all OK.

She died the next night.

12

I’m at that stage now with my grandma. She lives interstate, so I don’t get to see her that often, she has cancer and is currently in palliative care. In two weeks, the whole family is flying down to Tassie for Sunday lunch on my grandparents golden wedding anniversary. It will likely be the last time I see her.

But then we’ve been there before too. I went last September and we were sure it would be the last time, but she kept going. I went in March, and we were even more certain it would be the last time. She’s giving this fight her all. Funny thing was, both times she was not ready to say goodbye, so I didn’t. Which means that I’ve been terrified ever since that she’ll die and I won’t have said goodbye. This time around, I don’t know whether to hope she’s ready to say goodbye or not. Sometimes I wish she’d just hurry up and get on with it, but then I beat myself up for even thinking that because of all things I don’t want her to die. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to go through this, you just muddle your way best you can.

My thoughts are with you and your family at this most difficult of times.

It really, really sucks.

13

Bruce_Daddy, I am giving you the biggest, sloppiest internet hugs I can imagine.

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Bruce_Daddy}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

I didn’t know it was time to say goodbye to my father when I did. I never got a last time to tell him I loved him. :frowning: I don’t know if that means anything. But there. I 've never been so close to crying on a message board before.

Please, If you need a friend, email me. You extended that offer to me, and now I am extending it to you. Please, let me know if you need to talk.

14

Unfortunately, no.

My Mom was diagnosed with lung cancer last summer. I came up from Texas to be with her during surgery, but it turned out to be inoperable. So I moved up to help out during the chemo and radiation. She finished up in late October, and by Thanksgiving she was bouncing back real strong.

The Oncologist talked her into participating in a study. Her type of cancer usually comes back, and this study was designed to actualy “cure.” So in early December she goes in for additional chemo treatments. It was a blind study, but we know she got the chemo (instead of a placebo) by her reaction.

We had our family XMas get-together on Sunday, Dec 21. The next morning, Mom can’t get out of bed. She says her chest hurts, and that she can’t breathe. 911 gets her to the hospital, where the ER folks put her on oxygen and some form of inhaler to get her lungs to open up. Mom perks up a bit, and we’re actually laughing and cutting up in the ER.

They’re going to check her in for observation, and Mom wants some stuff from home, just 10 minutes away. Ten minutes to get her stuff, and 10 more to drive back to the hospital, and I find Mom in ICU, knocked out and intubated. Her vitals dipped dangerously while I was gone, and she had been moved.

Doctors give us vague reassurances, and her vitals hold steady for a week; after that, they begin to decline day-by-day.

Morning of January 6: Doctors tell us it can be any minute, but then Mom rallys and her vitals start to come up a bit. I hadn’t eaten or had a break in over 36 hours, so I step out for a vending machine sandwhich and a cup of coffee; maybe 10, 15 minutes tops.

I come back in and she’s gone; she had just slipped away that quickly. The machine’s alarms had been turned off (DNR), and my blind step-father is sitting there completely unaware that anything is wrong.

15

This bear repeating until it is engrained into every brain cell.
Whenever I leave a close relative or finish a phone call with one, I will tell them I love them. That way, if anything bad happens to either of us, the last words they ever heard from me was that I loved them.

The best thing I’ve ever done is tell my Dad I loved him the last time I saw when I knew he was dying. He’s been gone for eight years and I miss him terribly.

But I feel very good. He knows and I know. The knowledge of that has strength beyond imagination. It remains as fresh and alive as the day I said those words.

I say them often to those I love.

16

Thanks everybody. :speechless:

17

I’m sitting in an office full of people trying not to tear up. I’m currently out of the country and won’t be back for a year. My grandmother is 96 and my mother is 70. I can help but wonder if there are some people I will never see again. As hard as it is to say goodbye its harder not being able to say it.

18

My brother turned 48 on Dec 3 of 2000. He died Dec 7.

The cancer he had been battling since March had finally won.

I was lucky enough to have a ton of vacation time and when we knew things were getting bad, I took off work. I took off the week before Thanksgiving and had a LOA planned to start Dec. 10.

At my brother’s birthday party, the morphine had started to take hold. He was in and out of reality, he was alternately hallucinating and carrying on normal conversations.

I got him a birthday card that I glued a picture to the front of. The picture was of him and me on his HS graduation. He was 17, I was 7. When he opend the card, he looked and looked and looked and then he smiled, god that smile. He pointed to the picture, he pointed to himself and then pointed to me and then he did the “thumbs up” sign. I told him I loved him.

Before I left to drive back to Cleveland, I told him I’d be back in six days. He seemed surprised by this. I don’t know why because since his diagnosis, I had spent time with him and his wife pretty regularly helping around the house, cooking, cleaning, etc. Anyway, I told him we’d laugh at the Spinger guests when I came back. He died three days later.

I left Cleveand at 2 am and should have pulled into Chicago at 7 or 8 am. Because of snow and shit traffic, I didn’t get there until 11 am. My brother had died at 10:30. My family was with him. I still am sad sometimes that I was not there.

To aid in death is a gift. And even when you know it’s coming, it’s still sudden.

Peace to you Bruce-Daddy you will be in my thoughts during this difficult time.

19

Buddy, I just wanted to check in offer my support as well. I’ve made some posts and started a thread or two about my parents, mom especially, and we’ve talked quite a bit off line, so you have a pretty good idea what my thoughts on “saying final goodbyes” are.

While Torie is sending big sloppy hugs, I’m sending a firm handshake and manly pat on the back. Let me know if you need anything or to just vent.

20

Thanks, my friend. I know you really mean it.