I have gone through several times with family members and severe illness and it is never easy to watch some one you love suffer. Just remember it is a rough time for them and they need your support.
I will tell you of my most recent time and how I had to handle it. My dad developed cancer and he was quite an old age. I wanted him to live with me and he refused. He wanted to be in a nursing home and not interfere with my life and no amount of talking would convince him otherwise.
I watched the’daddy’ I knew and loved turn into some one that I didn’t recognize any more. I sat and watched him stop breathing several times at the end and he did not want anything done to prolong his life and I had to respect that.
He always tried to act like he wasn’t in pain and put on a good show for me every day. That was the way my father was, always thinking of every one else.
My dad had never been a Christian but during his illness he did and all the while I was praying for his healing. He kept asking me to let him go and I didn’t understand what he meant or perhaps I didn’t want to understand as I wanted to keep him as long as I could and I know that was selfish.
The last night of his life he told me to go home he wanted to be alone and again he pleaded with me to let him go. I went home and kept thinking about it.
The next morning it struck me what he meant and I prayed the hardest prayer I ever had to pray and ask for him to be taken. Not 5 minutes later the phone rang and I was informed he had passed away and that confirmed to me what he had been asking me to do all along.
During his illness he had many questions and wanted to talk about death and I talked with him.
I have learned that you have to go with what the person wants and not what you may want. None of us wants to see a loved one suffer but yet we don’t want to see them go either but there comes a time we have to let go.
I had to hold together as my son was so upset I had to be strong for him and managed to sing the hymn he wanted sung at his funeral, which is another very hard thing to do since it was one we had always sang together and now it was solo time and goodbye time.
My family all knows what I want when my time comes and I know it will be hard for them to carry out my wishes but I know they will.
Only time can heal the pain of losing a loved one but if you have strong faith the pain will be less.