My mom has been gently fading this past week. Every day I wonder if it is the last. Her doctors have all confirmed it is terminal and her refusal to eat or be tube fed or even have an IV doesn’t give them or anyone much hope that she can turn things around. I get it. I don’t pressure her at home. I always offer her what we are having. I always ask if she wants anything. She says no. It seems like the nausea makes her avoid food and avoiding food gives her nausea and she doesn’t care about breaking the pattern. I tell her I love her. I have connected her with as many family members I can think of. I don’t know what else to do. My mind keeps telling me that there must be SOMETHING that will give her a will to live. I care for her 24/7 for the past 6 months- once I found out she was terminally ill (something she had been hiding from me for a while I think). How do you cope with the inability to do more? How do you be okay with letting someone choose to die? Please no one tell me about heaven - it doesn’t make me feel better.
Have her doctors not suggested that?
Hospice will assist in keeping your mother comfortable.
Do as you would without the illness, the weight of a terminal illness
Play music! Dance! Bake! Share! Be in the moment, with your mom. Trust that she will take what she needs from that. It wont be easy.
Cancer just claimed my dad. It was extremely hard to carry on as if
nothing was wrong-no impending doom. Don’t be ashamed to cry.
Share those feelings. We all want to know we will be missed.
Perhaps her distancing herself, shutting down, gives her control over the situation, or makes it less difficult to leave.
It’s all so unfair. Isn’t it? Eve and the apple, Pandora’s box, who can we blame?
Let those emotions out!
Leaving, saying “goodbye”, letting go, is the most difficult thing any of us have to do. It’s forever and ever.
Escaping physical pain is the only reason we embrace it.
“Grief is not a sign of weakness,
nor a lack of faith,
it is the price of
love”. - Anonymous
Fact of life. Does not make it any easier.
I "discovered" taking this journey with my Husband that the tears I shed were not for him but for me. I was (getting teary here) going to miss him, I was the one that was loosing the love of my life, for me to want him to stay, to not die was selfish of me. He was the one trapped in a body that was no longer his, no longer the vibrant, laughing, smiling man I fell in love with. Lying on the bed was a shell of what he was. He would not have wanted to live that life any longer.
I told him that I loved him, that I would be alright. I held his hand.
It is difficult to watch your loved one die. But caring for him was one of the most special things I have done in my life. I would not have wanted it any different.
I miss him. But he is still with me. When I do something in a way he would not have approved of, I hear his voice telling me so. When I cook a meal he loved I can feel him with me. When I look at the grand kids he is there.
Your mom will always be with you. When you fix a meal she taught you how to make. When you look at yourself in the mirror a bit of her will be there. And her voice will be there to guide you when you make a decision. I am sure your mom hid her illness from you just as my parents hid theirs from me. Your mom did not want to cause you any more pain than you already have. Isn't that what parents do, carry burdens for their children? (read Footprints in the Sand)
As long as you do your best given the information you have you should not question if you could have done more or done better. That is all anyone can ask of another.
(took me longer to write this than it should through tears. Grief is different for everyone Cdrickler's post below closes with a saying that has been taped to the wall above my computer for 6 years and it is so very true. Just know it is a road we all travel but the trip is different for all of us)
Rest well, you are doing the best that you can.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNJxq4J5kYY
You have been able to offer your mom a selection of loving choices. That is a luxury that I haven’t had. My LO at age 92, had Covid TWICE, and I, at 76, am recovering from Covid now. I may not ever see her again.
My point is that you have done everything, with love, that you can. There is no magic bullet, no missing thought, no “term” extension except that with which we connect with each other. Be at peace.
When my brother died in Hospice care at age 85 I felt only relief for him. The pity was for myself in his loss, as for all my life he was Hansel to my Gretel in any dark woods. But upon his death I knew he would suffer no more. And I would not live in terror of his suffering.
You are doing this perfectly. You are offering comfort, and what you can provide, and your LOVE most of all. Reassure her you will be OK, and that she will be with you every day you live. TRUST ME< that is the TRUTH. Celebrate her life with her. Remind her of WONDERFUL things you remember. Tell her you will treasure memories of times she allowed you to care for her.
She will never be gone from you. You will be stuck, like me, remembering her and wanting to tell her about an exquisite magnolia you saw that day. But you can write her notes in a scrapbook, decorate it, put in photos, and remember that for you she will always live.
My heart goes out to you.
I am an atheist. I don't believe in heaven. So I won't tell you about that. I WILL tell you about peace. I will tell you my Dad in his 90s told me he was so exhausted. He wanted only peace. It was so hard for him to make himself get out of bed. It was a torment to him that he had to go on. I will tell you about peace. I will tell you about the inevitability of death, I will tell you about memories. Annie Dillard has a quote I love.
"We live our lives as though hundreds of thousands of generations had not come before us, and as though hundreds of thousands of generations are not yet to come." That's the truth. We are a blip of time, a particle floating in the sun. Then gone. But what we FEEL is profound as anything I can think of. The LOVE. It is so amazing. You can mourn. You WILL mourn. You must mourn. But when you do, let your tears wash you clean, lift up your head, feel the joy of what you had and the joy of what can never ever be taken from you. THAT will be my hope for my daughter. We speak often about death.She is 58. She is raised up strong. Will be OK. I want her to have nothing left of my but my joy of her, and my wish that her joy lives on.
Fighting death is a waste of energy. We're are all going to die anyway, whether we fight it or not, so why should your mother fight to live when she has a terminal illness which is exhausting her?
Hope, for me, lies in knowing that life is eternal, which makes ME feel better. The signs I've received from my father since his passing 5.5 years ago reaffirm that he's fine and in a much happier place now, so I'm glad his passing was quick and painless.
Wishing you the best of luck finding acceptance & peace with a difficult concept.
Your mom knows that she will die. She has accepted it.
It’s hard for us to watch them suffer. It’s hard for us to say goodbye because we will miss them. So, basically, it is a mixed bag of emotions.
Allowing those we love to die with dignity is a tremendous gift.
She knows that you love her. She doesn’t need anything more than that. You’ve already given her the most important thing in life.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference.
ive learned the only thing I can change is myself, my way of thinking and attitude. I cannot change others but be at peace within myself.
YOU ARE DOING ALL THE RIGHT THINGS. ❤️🙏
I celebrate your bravery on your difficult road.
You ask "How do you be okay with letting someone choose to die?" It's not easy but here is what I've learned from my mother's and M-I-L's deaths. When a person is near the end of their life they stop needing or wanting nutrition. It is a natural part of the dying process. They are preparing to leave. There is nothing you can do other than offer comfort and love by being there. The rest is out of our control. You are a loving daughter and caretaker. As difficult as it is to let go, and believe me I would have given anything for my mother to get well, there comes a time when that is the most loving thing to do. It is also normal to second guess ourselves and think we could have done more or done something better. I beat myself up for a long time after my mom died with "woulda, shoulda, coulda" before I came to realize that I did the very best I knew how to do.
She should be on an end if life care to keep her as pain-free and comfortable as possible.
Let the guiding star be this one thing: Keep her comfortable, and honor her wishes.
---->>>Please do a preplanned cremation or funeral. Funeral homes will gouge you over your grief. Preplanning also has other advantages such as discounts. DO THIS NOW if you have not done so because when she dies you need to get a funeral home to remove the body fast. <<<<----- I got my mom cremated for under $1,000. A burial will cost $10,000 if not more and that means the cheapest one.
Life itself is a terminal illness and we are all destined to die. When I lost my mom I came to realize that more than ever. Life is more of an ordeal, and when mom died, her ordeal of living ended and she is in everlasting peace that pain and suffering is only reserved for the living. When we love someone, the price of that is grieving, and we grieve because we are still alive. I think of it this way: If I had the power to bring her back to life, it would be the cruelest, most selfish thing to do because she would have to die all over again, and the next time around may involve pain and suffering. When mom was dying, she did not suffer, and in fact it was the most peaceful death I have ever seen--hospice came over every single day to make sure she was comfortable and not once did they ever open up that emergency box. When she died, she opened her eyes and took two deep breaths and died. That was it.
It has been over a year and I am still recovering from her death I miss her so much. What you need to do is start becoming your own caregiver. I know my mom would not want me to destroy myself over her death, so I needed to get back to the pulse of the living because caregiving her for 15 years really did a number to my mind that every single moment from I woke up to going to bed was caring for mom. I completely lost my own identity.
I am now gainfully employed, and working toward my Master's degree. The stress of school took myself out of my own grieving and now I mostly complain about the next assignment and exam to my friends. And of course I complain about work. You know, normal complaints. And all the crap I have to do around the house and don't have time for anything.
You are doing all you can for your mum, and if she is not on hospice call her doctor and get her on it. They will supply you with diapers, ointments, and renew her routine medications and even a free hospital bed, hoyer lift, oxygen (they take it once she dies), geriatric chair...and I used them like a home clinic. They were surprised I never had to give my mom any narcotics or psychotropics, and she was always peaceful. I think she new inside despite her end-stage Alzheimer's she was loved and secure, and I thank God I let mom die at home and she did not have a single mark on her skin.
I still cry over her death. You never get over it. You learn to accept it, but never get over it. GRIEF becomes a part of who you are. I think also grief keeps us connected to loved ones that died. Because we cannot stop loving that person, that grief will never go away.
There's nothing anyone can tell you that can ever make it better to loose your Mom. You can only give you loads and loads of love! And spend time with her...talk with her, if she feels like that. I know she's weak, so she may not want to talk. Maybe just read to her, her favorite book. She only has to listen. Spend as much time with her as you can. That's the one thing I regret with ALL my heart. Because I had my husband and boys to care for in addition to my grandmother. Knowing now what I do, I wish I had put everything else on the back burner but her. It's been 30 years but I miss her so much! Though I know I'll see her again, I still feel guilty for not spending that time with her. So, don't let that happen to you. Keep doing what you're already doing...telling her you love her, asking her to join y'all, everything. And spend time with her. You'll be so happy you did.
How I wish I had let their last days be more peaceful without me thinking I knew what was best.
I really was trying to help and I'm sure you are too but sometimes what we think is helping is making things harder for the natural progression of their life.
Of course, love her as much as you can. Offer her all that you can. Then let her live and leave as she chooses. It's the best thing you can do for her.
May God help you through this difficult time. It is a season that will pass and one that you can look back on knowing you made it as comfortable for her as you could.
Tell your mom you love her, and that you want her to do what she wants to do. If she's tired and wants to go, she has your blessing. You will be doing her (and yourself) a huge favor. Sending you lots of comforting energy, and peace for your mom. Hugs.
Let her rest while you love on her. You are doing the right thing. Best wishes to you.
I believe coming to this realization takes time.