When your parents are dying: Some of the Simplest, Most Difficult and Redemptive Life-Advice You’ll Ever Receive (I think also applies as regards grandparents.)
“My advice here is very specific and practicable. It is advice I wish someone had given me as forcefully as I’m about to give it now: When your parents are dying, you should go be with them. You should spend as much time as you can. This may seem obvious; you would be surprised how difficult it can be. It is less difficult if you have a good relationship with the parent or, even if you don’t, if you’re old enough to have lost friends and to have seriously considered your own death. Even so, it may be more difficult than you think.”
[themarginalian.org]
5
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.My mom was very self sufficient until her late 80s when she exhibited symptoms of dementia. It was Alzheimer's. Took her car from her when she was 87, she had a bunch of fender benders. She was pissed. Over the next two years she got progressively worse. For the last three years of her life, I moved in with her. I cooked, cleaned, bathed and dressed her. My only regret is not spending more time with her before she became a phantom. At the end We had to put her in home hospice. I changed diapers and bed chucks. Administered meds to keep her calm. One morning I got up and she was gone. I have held both my dead parents in my arms, 24 years apart. I urge anyone who's parents are still around. Cherish them and spend as much time with them as you can. Be nice to them. You'll be glad you did.
barjoe
Level 9
Nov 12, 2021
2
My sister and I took care of my mother in her final months. Fortunately, she was always alert and active up until then. She would have lived much longer, if her “new” doctor, who never bothered to check her files, had not prescribed a statin drug…my mother had had Hep-B, as a result of a blood transfusion in the 1950s and should never have been given it. As a result, a woman who rarely drank in her entire lifetime, died of cirrhosis of the liver. Her final decline was rather quick, less than three months. I’d always had a very good relationship with her and she was my best friend all my life. (Yes, I have a “same age” BFF, too…54 years now.)
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