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Comment by Melissa Joy Wright on June 29, 2011 at 2:15pm

I wasnt there the moment my father died but i was there 30 min after his passing. The thought of my father lyin in his hospital bed lifeless is constantly in my head. I wanted to see him breath again wanted to tell him i loved him one more time. I am angry and lost.. That imagine bothers me so much, all the memories of him that i should have I get stuck on that. My mom she told me how he was in so much pain before they gave him the doses of migraine.. Crying out for help, and her saying just let go honey.. It kills me that he is no longer here.. I am glad he is no longer hurting but i miss him so much

Comment by Cynthia Horacek on June 29, 2011 at 2:12pm

Dear Arielle -

I just read your reply to Mercy and one thing you said hit a chord with me; you said:  "there's a very different feeling i get when i talk to my brother out loud as opposed to just in my head or in my journal. it's more honest, more like a real conversation". And I just wanted to tell you I feel the same about my husband.  I talk to him aloud more now, and I never before was really sure what my belief was about is there something more after this life, and I feel that there is.  Mostly because the last couple of days, he kept reaching towards something in front of him that no one else could see and while he didn't verbalize much (he really lost that ability those last few days, but every now and then, he'd make sense), I know he was seeing something there.  Maybe his mom who died in 2001 or someone or something else.  

So that's all.  Just wanted to comment.  Thank you.

Comment by Cynthia Horacek on June 29, 2011 at 2:07pm

Dear Mercy -

It is so normal that after losing your brother, and not really having time to mourn him, your mom's death reawakened a lot of feelings.  I'm so glad you found this site - it is a great place to get stuff off your chest so to speak, and you don't have to give anything back!  Just know that everyone who is here is here for everyone else, and we each give what we can when we can, and if we can't, that's okay too - at least with me.  

Visit the gravesite only when YOU feel that's what you want to do.  There are so many phases to this process we call grief, and none of them are nice and neat, and they don't make a nice, neat progression, either.  They come and go, they  overlap, and just when you're (at least, for me) sure you've passed out of one, it comes back and hits you (me!) like a tsunami!  My husband died in November from rectal cancer that spread to his bone marrow and liver very quickly.  This morning in the shower I found myself suddenly thinking about the last morning with him - how he looked, what he was trying to say, I'll never know that as his speech was not clear, how when I gave him what turned out to be the last does of morphine, and I kept telling him it was okay to go, to let the medication just carry him away, he actually said, "Well, I guess."  And then he took his last breaths, I listened to his last heartbeats and he was gone.  But I keep replaying it in my mind suddenly, again, and I can't afford to let myself go today!  Too much to do, and as I teach at a university and it's our last class tonight, I have to be there and I can't be falling apart.  The irony in this is I teach in a graduate psychology program, and if I came to class a mess, my students would all take care of me, but well, I guess I don't want the class to end on that note!  So now I have until September to fall apart whenever I want.  

I'm sorry; I got off track.  Just know that grief happens on it's own, in it's own time and when it wants to.  Know that we are here for you, and please don't ever feel like you have to give back.  You will when you are able. 

Take care.  

Comment by mercy on June 29, 2011 at 1:19pm

Thanks Melissa. Just having a listening ear helps a lot. I know my family is tired of me crying and going on and on about her. I find this a safe place to vent. I know right now I can barely offer any consolation to anyone as I'm in deep grief; with time I'll do my best to support all of you.

Arielle thanks for your support.. I too lost my brother suddenly in June of last year, he was only 42. I was numb and in denial until moms cancer came back. I finally acknowledged my brothers death but haven't had the chance to mourn him yet. Now mom is gone, my rock, my comfort. I'll try visiting the gravesite and see if it will bring me any sense of peace. Its just surreal; I've lost so many people and I'm not even forty. The gravesite stretches so far with my three brothers, mom and dad. Its so, so painful, I don't even know how I find the strength to go on one more day. Thanks everyone for your support.

Comment by Arielle on June 29, 2011 at 12:09pm

hi mercy. just wanted to let you know that everything you're saying is totally normal, i have shared the same thoughts and feelings. i know we all experience our losses differently, but i believe there are certain aspects of grief that are universal.

it may be too soon for you, but i visited my brother's grave this past weekend. the first time i visited was back in november, only about a month and a half after he passed. i felt totally numb being there at the time. but this time i went with my sister, she hadn't been yet, and we both just felt a sort of peacefulness. like, our brother is ok. he suffered unbeleivably in the three short months he was sick. and this is someone who was relatively young and extremely healthy before he was struck with lymphoma. so perhaps visiting her grave will help you. or simply talking out loud to her. there's a very different feeling i get when i talk to my brother out loud as opposed to just in my head or in my journal. it's more honest, more like a real conversation.

sorry to ramble on. just wanted to let you know i know how you feel. some days i wonder how will i go on with the rest of my life, which will likely be another 30 or 40 years without my big brother? it seems impossible. but we will be stronger for having gone through these terrible experiences and more prepared for whatever life brings us.

Comment by Melissa Joy Wright on June 29, 2011 at 11:59am

I feel your pain Mercy, my fathers last month here on earth were sooo difficult. I cry daily and miss him like crazy. I am here if you need me, not sure what help i can be as we are both in the early stages of grief but who knows maybe we can help each other. God bless you!

Comment by mercy on June 29, 2011 at 10:50am

Melissa; I totally understand. I lost my mom on May 28 and cannot seem to move on. I cry daily and miss her so much. The last six weeks of her life were like hell on earth for me. I was praying that I could die before she did so I wouldn't have to experience life without her. Honestly there are days when I wish I could just die in my sleep. My rational mind puts things in perspective sometimes but most times I'm not even in my right mind. I know your feelings and pain. It really helps to have a place where we can openly share what we are feeling.

Comment by Melissa Joy Wright on June 27, 2011 at 9:52pm

I lost my wonderful father to Leukemiam, AML.. On mothers day this year.. been so lost and angry since his diagnosis and now his death.

Comment by Cynthia Horacek on June 25, 2011 at 3:31pm

Dear Barbara, Mercy and Chrissy -

First of all, Barbara, thank you for your wonderful compliment!   It warms my heart and lately my heart has been hurting a lot.  I'm missing my husband, I had to relinquish my dog and earlier this week my mom had an episode that sounded a lot like early dementia.  She seems fine now, but one never knows how these things are going to show up I guess.  Mercy and Chrissy, you are so right about grief and the feelings; and I can relate to what you are both saying about your experiences.  My husband died at home; the dr. asked him if he wanted to go home and have hospice, or go back into the hospital as a terminal patient for palliative care only.  I asked him what he wanted, and he said "whatever is easier for you" because that's the kind of man he was - whatever was easier for me, and here he was so weak he couldn't walk, and still putting my needs ahead of his own.  There will never be anyone like him.  Anyway, he came home, hospice was disappointing in that their idea of palliative care was to make us wait for what we needed, like morphine; they promised whatever we needed, they would supply within 2 hours of a phone call.... but it didn't work that way.  Anyway, we finally got him morphine, and it didn't help, so I called my brother who is a dr, and he told me how much and how often I could give it to him to get him pain back under control.  He was in his last few hours of life, but I didn't know that then.  However, it became clear to me that he was going to leave us very soon.  I gave him a dose of morphine every 1/2 hours and kept track of his breathing, and kept telling him it was okay to go... and what I can related to is Chrissy's comment about the nurse changing her mom's gown; for some reason, his caregiver we had gotten from an agency our dr. recommended wanted to change my husband's tee shirt during all this... I told him if he had to do it, to just use scissors and cut it off; then he wanted something to put on him; I told him to get a clean shirt and just cut it up the back and we just put it over his arms - I wasn't going to bother him making him sit up and deal with a shirt over his head and all that - he didn't have any i.v.'s in, because his liver and kidneys had failed and the excess fluid would just fill his lungs as he couldn't excrete it.  When he died, the caregiver cried; that made me angry because he knew (the caregiver was male) my husband was dying; what did he expect?  I had enough to deal with without our caregiver falling apart, too.  So there is a lot I still question - was I selfish to want him home?  Would he have gotten better pain management in the hospital?  Maybe; but would he have been able to be surrounded by friends and family at the moment of his death?  I don't know, and I'll never know.  The hospital he had been in probably once a month for a year had private rooms, but you just never know.  It was a teaching hospital, and the last thing i wanted to have to deal with were residents and interns.  But the nurses there were truly wonderful.  I still believe, after all of his hospitalizations over the years for his Crohn's Disease, that it's really the nurses who save lives and it's the nurses who get to know the family and do the "dirty work."  They don't get enough kudos.  And it's the nurses who let you know by what they say between the lines if you have a good doctor or not! 

I'm sorry to go on and on so much; for the past few months I was doing better; I don't know what happened to me yesterday - I just sort of fell apart, and it was a lousy day.  But my daughter was spending the day with my mom and dad and she said everything seemed normal, so that was encouraging.  But when my mom gets exhausted, and she does because she's taking care of my dad, she seems to kind of lose her footing in reality and panics at little things.  But she is 86, so I guess she's allowed.  Anyway, thank you again for your compliments and I'd be happy to "friend" each of you on this site.  Or if you're on Facebook... (is that okay to say here?).  Take good care of yourselves.

Comment by chrissy m on June 25, 2011 at 12:54pm

i know what are talking about when it comes to the anger. i even had some crazy thoughts going through my head about a certain nurse i wasn't too keen on. the put it short, my mother took her last breath right after this certain nurse had changed her gown and 'freshened' her up. i think having these thoughts is a normal thing to experience. we wish we could change the outcome, but we have to accept that what is done is done. we have to HOPE that our loved ones received the level of care they deserved. it was out of our hands at that point.

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