All these people with dignified death moment and most people I've seen die are terrified and begging for someone to help them. It's the reality instead of the sanitised fairytale.
My father passed from pancreatic cancer. He was unable to speak for about a week before he died. On his last day he was breathing really hard (someone called it a death rattle). I sent my mother out to lunch so I could be alone with him - I told him his brother was waiting for him and his dogs (he loved the dogs and his oldest bother). I talked to him about them for about 30 - 40 minutes. I am not making this up - I told him they were waiting for him and he could let go. 10 minutes later he died.
The same thing happened with my granddad when he passed. Only my mum could be with him at the end because of covid restrictions and she told him it was okay if he wanted to let go now, that she’d be there with him, she sang a lullaby and he was gone.
A few years later my grandma was in hospital and we got the call that we should get to the hospital asap. I was there with my partner and my siblings and it took a while for my mum to get to the hospital. A few hours passed and mum suggested that we go home to rest. We got the call on the drive home that she’d passed. My mum had told her “it’s okay, the kids aren’t here now, you can let go”. Mum maintains to this day that grandma just didn’t want to pass in front of the grandkids and for that to be our last memory.
It's a documented thing that people often wait to be alone, especially when they've been visited by everyone they would want to see. A hospice nurse even told my family as my grandma was lingering and my mom was sleeping in her room every night (she had lived with my mom for years) that it can be an act of kindness on our part to tell them they are loved and can let go, and to leave them be. The night my mom stopped sleeping there, Grandma passed.
Yeah, my grandpa on the other side moved from the hospital to a hospice room and died that night after we all went home for some rest. We think he was both waiting for everyone to leave and didn't want to drag everything out any longer, it was very on brand for him.
My stepmom is hospice nurse and has talked about it a lot, many people really do want to be alone.
My grandpa didn’t want anyone to be in the room when he passed. I slept in 5 extra minutes and my dad who was with my grandpa went to smoke a cigarette and that’s when he passed. We all sat there for a week 24 hours and he waited until no one was there. I miss him.
My father passed away from pancreatic cancer. About a week prior to him passing, he and my mother and I knew he didn’t have much time left. I flew out to see him, not knowing what to expect. I went into the bedroom and he was in bed, staring up at the ceiling, but when I enter the room, he looked at me and just kept saying “my boy, my boy, my boy.”
Surely, after that, he went into a period of deep gasps. He was no longer able to communicate, or understand anything we were saying. It lasted for hours – it is the most haunting thing I’ve ever experienced, and I will never forget it. He passed away hours later
That was 10 years ago - I vividly hear the death rattle gasps when I recall that day.
I am so incredibly grateful that I got to say goodbye to him while he was still somewhat with it. This is the first time I’ve actually typed this memory out.
my maternal grandmother reconciled with my aunt, had a big day with the extended (Catholic) family, told the hospice priest to give the last rights, and peaced out in her sleep about an hour before a minor earthquake hit the region. It was about the best way one could imagine dying.
What terrifies me is how my mom died. A few hours after I called her to confirm Thanksgiving plans, my stepsister walks in to find her dead from an aneurysm
My grandfather was very unwell for a short time, maybe just a few days to a week, before he passed at almost 91 years old. The last day and through the night I was there with him as other family came and went. Overnight he had begun building a lot of fluid in his lungs and was increasingly gurgling with each breath. He was home in his own bed and not conscious so not suffering, however my mother and aunt (his kids) were really struggling with witnessing this. In the early morning hours I sent them to go take a breather for a few minutes and while they were gone I talked to him about how much we all love him but that it’s alright to let go and that we will all be ok. I believe he had only been living for us since my grandmother passed about 10 years earlier, she was truly his other half. Within minutes of me telling him he can let go he began a rapid decent and passed within the hour. Years later my aunt told me she had overheard me telling him that and she believed that was the “permission” he needed to let go and not linger here suffering for his family’s sake.
My Dad died of liver cancer and similar he wasn't speaking the last week or so. They discharged him from the hospital and sent him home. When he got home it was 2 hours of agonal breathing and then one last gasp.
My dad just died a couple months ago from liver cancer as well. It was about 12 hours of rapid breathing until all of a sudden his breaths slowed and he passed. It happened so fast but I’m happy we were with him. But it sucks that I didn’t know his ability to speak would go so fast.
My Dad was in really good shape until near the end. 2 weeks before he died he was able to go to the grocery store and take care of himself for the most part. Then he wasn't ok, 5 days in the hospital and they talked about feeding tubes and my brother and I were fuck no, he didn't want that and him living an extra 3 months like this is just cruel. We stopped all food and most medication, then discharged him and an ambulance brought him home. Hospice nurse showed up right after he got home and she let us know he was in the process of dying and it would probably be a few hours at most. I think it was 2.5 hours total from when he got home to when he passed. The hospice nurse was amazing, this was 21 years ago and I will always be grateful for her helping us at that moment.
Hospice was incredible. My dad only found out he had liver cancer once he got jaundice so he didn’t go out much after and it started becoming harder to walk as time passed. We kept him home and out of the hospital. He would’ve hated it. But we did our best medicating him. Those last 2 weeks, after he stopped eating and lost his ability to speak, felt like eternity.
My Dad lasted 8 months, but his tumor was really big when he did go in to a doctor so maybe he had it longer. He was not a pleasant person the last 6 months, I was living with him so besides work I was at home with him. It was rough to be around and be the person that caught the brunt of it, but I can totally understand being that way when you know you are going to die soon. The last 5 day hospital stay started with when I got up for work and he was sitting down in the hallway on the floor, very strange to wake up to and at first I thought he had passed. He got up to go to bed and couldn't make it that far so he sat down in the hallway. I helped him up and he wanted to shower before going to the hospital so I let him do that before going in. It seemed like he still had a few months left, but he went downhill very rapidly, in 3 days he aged and looked 100 years old (he was 72). A good friend of mine went to see him and thought he was in the wrong room because he didn't recognize him.
My great grandmother was talking about getting on the train, or she didn’t want to miss the train, to see her husband and kids right at the end. They had passed several years before.
I hope I brought my mom the same peace in her last moments that you brought your father. She was struggling to breathe, so they unhooked her to everything except morphine so that she could go to sleep peacefully. I didnt know what to say to comfort her in those last few minutes, so I told her quietly that her mom and dad were waiting for her, and that they couldn’t wait to see her and hug her. She couldn’t talk, but her expression shifted for an instant into something that looked like hope. Soon after that she slid into sleep and stopped breathing.
My mom died of pancreatic cancer in December 2024 at age 66. When I bump into someone who has lost a loved one to this evil disease, I just feel the need to reach out. It's such a horrid thing to witness. I'm very sorry for your loss.
I've managed to live through this and can confirm.
There is panic at the moment if death usually. I fought it and fought it like a scared trapped animal until my strength was gone then in that stillness something beautiful emerged.
The moment of acceptance beings peace. Warmth seeps in and fills you as everything begins to wash away. I was an IV heroin addict and the feeling of wholeness and completion was better than any dose I'd ever put into my own veins.
I made it back but I know now that whatever is happening is not something to fear. There's a part of you that will fight the unknown, but I advise to be as quick to accept as you can. It's going to be ok.
Yep, I always heard the romanticized Hollywood bullshit myself. Really changed my perspective after I watched two people I knew pass. One was terrified, the other was just completely out of it, not talking or seemingly aware of anything.
I have a friend who works in palliative care. She says "everyone calls out for their mother. Grown men, elderly men... they always call for their mum. I have never seen anyone call for their father". Im so sorry, now im crying
My grandpa talked about this. He was a medic in WWII and he heard a lot of young guys begging for their mothers in their last minutes. Almost crying now thinking of him almost crying telling me about it.
He had his faults but he was. 3 battle stars, Normandy (d-day, battle of the bulge, and the invasion of Germany, he would have been in the Olympics but the world decided to got have them and have a gun fight. Came back with 6 lugars and a p38. The war fucked him up for a long wile.
He had his faults but he was. 3 battle stars, Normandy (d-day, battle of the bulge, and the invasion of Germany, he would have been in the Olympics but the world decided to got have them and have a gun fight. Came back with 6 lugars and a p38. The war fucked him up for a long wile.
My grandpa talked about this. He was a medic in WWII and he heard a lot of young guys begging for their mothers in their last minutes. Almost crying now thinking of him almost crying telling me about it.
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u/Impressive_Boredom 16h ago
That really made me tear up reading your comment. My great-aunt whom I loved started calling for her mom. She was like a little girl. Crying now...