How does one feel when they know they are about to die soon?

Depends. My father had brain cancer. He was a bigger badass than you will ever know.

Half the time he thought my brother and I were guards in a communist Chinese prison camp, and he would take a swing at me while I slept.

The other half of the time he was embarrassed people were fussing over him, and insisted people pretend that it wasn’t happening. I want to say he didn’t want people to fuss.

I think they are usually afraid. Some are more afraid of the dying process than actual death.

Sadness, especially if they are not ready to die.

There are stages to accepting a terminal diagnosis that most people go through. Denial, bargaining, anger, acceptance, much like grieving losing someone, we grieve about the loss of our own life,

Some people are more ready to die than others. I think it makes a big difference what is causing the death, how old the person is, the people around them, and their beliefs about death.

Listen to this.

@ETpro – that was so touching, bitter-sweet and gave me goose-bumps.

Both my mother and a dear elderly friend relived their lives going through all their memories and shared them with those who loved them. Almost urgently, perhaps because it was the last time to share these memories.

I know my mother was ready and was tired. For several years she wore DNR DNI hospital bracelets on her wrist at all times. She died peacefully in her sleep.

My elderly friend, upon having to go into a nursing home/hospice setting for the final weeks was profoundly sad over the loss of control over his life that was slipping away. Here in his final days, sharing a room with another man, he was sad that he could not even watch Monty Python on television because his roommate who dominated the television only wanted to watch sports, which my friend detested.

I was in summer camp in the Army Reserves for a short time, and one summer camp I became extremely ill. I kept trying to go to the hospital, but they wouldn’t admit me (they thought I was faking my symptoms).

During that time, I remember thinking, “I wonder if this is what it’s like to die”. It was.

I was sad that nobody cared about me. I wasn’t particularly scared (although some people are really scared when they think about dying).

Some people find out they’re dying, and stop living (go into depression). If this happens, it’s helpful to find activities that keep them in the present, such as making a scrap book about their life for others to enjoy after they’re gone.

I was absolutely certain I was going to die in a car accident this week. An idiot tried to pass three cars in a no passing zone. I knew I was dead, there was no way I would survive. I started apologizing to my loved one’s that would be hurt by my death. I know that’s different than an illness, but that was my focus.

. . . in his final days, sharing a room with another man, he was sad that he could not even watch Monty Python on television because his roommate who dominated the television only wanted to watch sports, which my friend detested.

Oscar Wilde couldn’t leave this world uttering dull last words, hence his last words “Either that wallpaper goes or I do.” and it would seem he probably felt the same way as he lay dying in an ugly crummy pension hotel.

No longer being able to exert any control over one’s environment as the final hour approaches must be distressful. Doing everything you can to make sure your loved one is surrounded by the things he or she find familiar, beautiful, and comfortable. Who needs a hygenic foam pillow with a plastic cover instead of a loved feather pillow when at death’s door? Why not enjoy the wine or the chocolate if one still can?

I would dread spending my last days in an ugly world of linoleum, plastic, and horrid colors, with no feather pillows on the bed and hateful stuff blaring from a television. My grandmother wanted to come home from the hospital to her beautiful bedroom and the bottle of bourbon in the wardrobe.

And remember, the last sense to go is hearing. Even after a person can no longer move or keep eyes open, he or she can hear. And being too far gone to take part in a conversation does not mean one would not enjoy hearing amusing repartee between or among loved ones gathered at bedside. That is another experience, visiting with a dying man and his long term partner in his last days.

People don’t stop having their likes, dislikes, and points of view because they are dying.

My mother was bipolar and her mind was always racing. When she was dying the last thought she conveyed was that she was “sitting comfortably on the edge of nowhere”.
My father didn’t want me to make the trip south to see him again until he was at the end of his battle with cancer. He called one day and told me it was time. I don’t know how he knew. I flew down and he confided in me that it was like he was sitting in front of the tv with a stack of movies of his life and he could pop one in from any time to relive the moment. He didn’t want me there at the end and told me it was time for me to go. He died the next day.

@snowberry Awful they did not take you seriously. One thing that struck me about you statement, was you said being alone with no one caring must be like what it is like to die. I think people die all the time not alone and with people around them who do care.

My dad was ill for several months before he died, and on the last day of his life he told me that he was tired, and just wanted to go to sleep. He passed away peacefully a few hours later.

@SomeoneElse Me too. I’m not ready to go yet. But I can feel the grim reaper’s breath behind me—I’m old enough to sense that now. I’ve been a fan of Johnny Cash for ages, and his parting song spoke powerfully to me. I don’t share his faith, but hope that was a comfort to him.

@anartist Great observations and I absolutely love the Oscar Wilde line. I hope when it is my time I have the presence of mind to check out in such an elegant way. From what you, @snowberry and @Hain_roo shared, we should do our utmost to be with our loved ones as their time approaches, and to make them as comdortable and loved feeling as we can.

@JLeslie: “I think that they are usually afraid” is a colossal generality, bellied by your more sensible last paragraph.

My mother, as she got very old and began to suffer from severe fatigue and senile dementia, soldiered on but talked all the time about being really ready and not regretting anything.

My father was afraid to keep on living. His Parkinson’s Disease was a torment and so for the five years before he actually did it, he talked to my mother and his brothers about his suicide. He also welcomed death, from all the letters, journals and notes that we found after we found him, lying in the driveway one Monday afternoon. A neighbor called the police, thinking that a dog had died while my mother was at the supermarket.

A sample of journals about death and dying;

Tuesdays with Morrie
The Last Lecture
In the light of Dying; The Journal of a Hospice Volunteer.

A study of end-of-life experiences edited and compiled by professors at Wayne State University
End-of-Life Stories: Crossing Disciplinary Boundaries.

@gailcalled I probably could have written it better. I really think the latter part of that paragraph is more likely, that people fear the process, if they are afraid more often than actual death. I know many people who are ready to die, I agree. Especially those afraid to live, and also those who feel they have led a full life.

Most of my experience with family members deaths can be best described by reading this book Final Gifts

All of the people in my family knew they were about to pass and all looked forward to the journey.

@JLeslie What I meant is that I really was dying, and the idiots-I mean Army medics and Army doctors didn’t believe me. The pain was excruciating, but what made me sad was that nobody there cared. When they finally admitted me they gave me a 50/50 chance of living because I was so dehydrated and other issues. Their incompetent behavior continued through my 10 day stay in that hospital, but the rest of that story doesn’t belong here.

@snowberry I thought you were speking in general, but you meant the specific situation. It’s horrific when hospital personnel suck. Hell, it is horrific when anyone does not take seriously a persons pain, suffering, and neglects a person in great need. I was just in a bad accident and overall I had good care, but I had an incident with the CAT scan people that I felt beat into submission, it is the one thing of all the events that I find the most upsetting. I feel they abused me in my state. They left me alone in a room, no way to call anyone after I had asked a question about the scans the doctor ordered. I was still in a neck brace, flat on my back, and in tremendous pain. It turned out I had a small tear in my lung, with a risk of it tearing more, and some other damage. Anyway, I empathasize with what you went through, although yours sounds much much worse, more prolonged, more serious, I am not trying to compare, just saying I think that sort of neglect, and for me I felt as though I was being castigated is traumatizing.

re visiting with the friend who was dying and his long-term partner [mentioned above]

He no longer had any interest in eating, had stopped eating days ago, but he took a little wine and took part in the conversation when he could and enjoyed listening when he didn’t have the energy. He lay there in the rented hospital bed, elevated slightly, stark nekkid and with no covers on because he was overheated.

His conversation to the end was startling blunt and entertaining. He was a millionaire several times over but almost obsessively frugal. He told us that he had called local animal crematoriums [such as Heavenly Days, where my darlin’ Jacky was cremated] to see if his remains could be cremated more cheaply there than at a funeral home/mortuary. When being told it was against the law, he shopped around to find a funeral home/crematorium that was low cost and settled on one in Florida.

Later he just lay back and enjoyed his partner’s stories of dealing in antiques with Princess Diana’s older sister [the one Charles really wanted to marry but couldn’t because she had been living with a Russian lover at one point].

His interest in the comic opera that was life never failed him to the end.

@gailcalled, @JLeslie, @SpatzieLover, @snowberry & @anartist I would hope we recognize that what goes areound coes around. Those dealing with terminal illness should be paying forward.

@ETpro: Could you translate from the epigrammatic to the concrete? I do not understand what you mean.

@gailcalled If we would like there to be friends there for us to make us as comfortable as possible and reminiscent about the life we’ve lived, then we should do that for friends and loved ones when they near the end. That’s paying forward.