RIP KS, Wife, Mom, friend
Dec. 3rd, 2007 10:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hobgoblinnI got out to the Hospice Center about 2 hours after K was gone tonight. I did that when my grandfather died, too, thanks to a flight delay. Boy, what memories that brings back.
It was for the best, I suppose. Spared us both the "Um-- sorry you haven't seen me in months. I am a complete loser, but I do care...." Her husband G. and son M. spent the day with her and she died soon after they left in the later afternoon. I got there as Msgr. N was completing the last rites. He told G that he's seen that happen a lot-- someone will wait until the loved ones leave, because they don't want to die in front of them.
I was able to take the kids off everyone's hands for a bit-- M and Wee Hob are good friends, and two nieces arrived with their mom, G's sister, right after we got there. I guess little M has been watching his mom die for the last year, so he was kind of taking it all in stride, clowning and rough housing with Wee Hob and his cousins. You can't be serious all the time. The nurse and the boy's aunt both commented that it was good he was able to do that.
Anyway, it was hard, but I was glad I was there to help, however small a thing it was, and sorry I wasn't more help all along. I have lots of uncomfortable thoughts about what would happen if something unexpected befell me-- there's not a dad for Wee Hob to go to. And man, I would not want anyone to look too closely at the state of my finances or general records. And there's the whole what if I don't believe anything about what my faith professes just now, too. I've had a morbid fear of death all my life-- maybe being exposed too early to the funerals of strangers in my extended family, some of whom were kids like me. I've attended some deaths in my time, and some were profoundly lovely and moving experiences. But I still had something like faith, then.
I'll be okay, I guess, but people who feel inclined to pray for the dead, or the loved ones left behind, know how much I appreciate it.
Hob
It was for the best, I suppose. Spared us both the "Um-- sorry you haven't seen me in months. I am a complete loser, but I do care...." Her husband G. and son M. spent the day with her and she died soon after they left in the later afternoon. I got there as Msgr. N was completing the last rites. He told G that he's seen that happen a lot-- someone will wait until the loved ones leave, because they don't want to die in front of them.
I was able to take the kids off everyone's hands for a bit-- M and Wee Hob are good friends, and two nieces arrived with their mom, G's sister, right after we got there. I guess little M has been watching his mom die for the last year, so he was kind of taking it all in stride, clowning and rough housing with Wee Hob and his cousins. You can't be serious all the time. The nurse and the boy's aunt both commented that it was good he was able to do that.
Anyway, it was hard, but I was glad I was there to help, however small a thing it was, and sorry I wasn't more help all along. I have lots of uncomfortable thoughts about what would happen if something unexpected befell me-- there's not a dad for Wee Hob to go to. And man, I would not want anyone to look too closely at the state of my finances or general records. And there's the whole what if I don't believe anything about what my faith professes just now, too. I've had a morbid fear of death all my life-- maybe being exposed too early to the funerals of strangers in my extended family, some of whom were kids like me. I've attended some deaths in my time, and some were profoundly lovely and moving experiences. But I still had something like faith, then.
I'll be okay, I guess, but people who feel inclined to pray for the dead, or the loved ones left behind, know how much I appreciate it.
Hob
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Date: 2007-12-04 03:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2007-12-04 04:02 am (UTC)*hugs*
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Date: 2007-12-04 01:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2007-12-04 08:14 am (UTC)I don't pray for the dead, but I do stand by for the living. I've been through this a bit lately, and if you need anywhere to vent or just someone to chat with I'm here though LJ or AIM.
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Date: 2007-12-04 02:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2007-12-04 04:03 pm (UTC)I've seen it both ways--people who wait to die until the loved ones show up, and people who wait until the loved ones leave. Will power is a strange thing, especially in the ill and dying.
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Date: 2007-12-04 04:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2007-12-04 04:54 pm (UTC)My grandmother waited until all of us had a chance to say goodbye and tell her that it was okay for her to go (either in person or over the phone) and two hours after we left her room, she died. The priest told us the same thing that Msgr. N did.
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Date: 2007-12-04 05:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2007-12-04 11:06 pm (UTC){{{hugs}}}
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Date: 2007-12-06 02:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-05 02:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-06 02:01 pm (UTC)