When you watch someone die, what do you see?

[MysticSang'ha]

A process or combination of fear, then sheer will to endure pain or discomfort, then a resignation.

I wasn't there the exact moment my grandmother died earlier this year. But I helped care for her with other family members as she died from colon cancer. What surprised me was how much it was like caring for an infant for the first time...and by that I mean that there are a lot of things that lessons offered to caregivers for the dying people are not aware of until it happens to them (much like first time parenthood). You can read a lot about it, but experiencing it for the first time brings a grit to you that had never been thought of before.

Details aside - simply because they are rather unsettling, and I'd prefer to keep some private - I'm forever grateful to have had been available to care for her in her final days and hours.

 

[Penumbra]

I've seen that, too. Someone I knew was hours from death from cancer, but he was thrashing about not just gripping the rails. I wasn't allowed to sit with him through to the end.

Yeah, cancer seems to be a pretty bad way to go. The person I described was also dying from cancer (probably malnutrition and general weakness from chemotherapy technically), and he was my father.

One thing he kept trying to do was prop himself up. Like, his bed had an angle to it that propped up his torso, and although he was unconscious and unable to be woken up, he kept furiously pushing his hands against the bed to push himself further up the incline, as though he felt that he was constantly sliding down it, even though he wasn't. I tried to hold his hand and talk to him so that he could hear my voice, and I kept asking him to relax, and saying that if he wants to tell me anything then I'm listening.

A pretty helpless experience overall, not really feeling able to help someone and not being sure if the professionals are doing their job optimally.

 

[Brickjectivity]

I'm sure death is nothing compared to birth though. Childbirth has got to suck for the baby, not that I remember mine.