Have you ever thought about what it must be like to know that you're going to die soon? I mean, everyone knows that they're going to die eventually, but do you ever wonder what it must be like for people who KNOW they only have a few months left to live? My grandmother is dying of lung cancer. She can't have chemo (sp?) because of her health, so the cancer is just going to kill her. I'm not particularly close to her for personal reasons, but I talked to her a bit at our family reunion this past weekend and she looked so horrible. They don't think she'll make it to christmas. I was thinking about how I would react in her situation, like if I would just sit around and wait for death to take me, if I'd ever smile again and mean it...my little sister is pregnant with her second baby, and my grandmother isn't going to live long enough to see it. I can't imagine what that must be like. This is the second person I've had in my family die of cancer, but I've never put that much thought into it what dying must be like. I guess now that I'm getting older (not old yet, but I'm definitely not a kid anymore) it's just starting to hit me a little more.
We just found out today that one of our cats is in the early stages of kidney failure, which means she has about 3 years left, or so... We don't have any kids, so our 3 cats are kind of our surrogate children. We always knew they wouldn't live all that long, but now they are getting old and it's starting to really bother us (especially my wife, who is taking this recent news pretty hard). She never had pets before, so it's harder on her. I have had other pets and seen them grow old and die, so it's not as hard for me. It's always hard to comfort someone when mortality enters the picture. I hate that.
My best friend's father is dying of cancer. I don't talk to my friend about this, even though I work with her so I see her everyday. It's just not an easy thing to talk about to someone who is close to someone dying. I don't know if he talks about it candidly or not, there have been some instances where he has to her.. how often or what his general feeling is I can't be sure of nor feel it's my business. However, I feel if I were dying I would go through stages even with the awareness I have of what death means now. At first, I think I would be immobilized by lack of understanding or shock. Then, I think I would do whatever my health allowed me to do, and in the end look at it as a new journey. Death doesn't necessarily scare me, I wish it were easier on those left beyond mostly. I have thought about this extensively only because of Tree's father, which is odd considering how little I've talked to her about it (once, in months). I want to ask her how she handles it, if each time she sees him it means more, if everything he does means more. But I can't ask her that, but the experience has made me more aware definately although he is not the first person I've known to know they were dying. My grandparents both died of cancer, but I was younger and less aware and more in denial. As a person of debatable mental health and occasional not exactly mental clarity I have had thoughts of suicide which do not come from myself consciously or thoughts I ask myself to have but thoughts that come from nowhere. That knowledge of death, that I could lose the ablity to separate those thoughts from my normal thinking makes me also aware of what death can mean for those in pain. Mental or physical, I'm sure there is a point you ask for it or resign.. either way are definately ready. I think that is what makes death not always as scary to those who are dying. Basically, at cliche as it is...... I would just live and love and enjoy and then wait for the end. I do not want to be drugged when it happens, either. No morphine, please.
I've gone through this, and I know what you're feeling. My mother dealt with cancer for more than 10 years, and she knew that she was going to die soon. The last few years of her life was a slow mourning process for my family and I... so by the time that she actually died, we had already mentally buried her. Her greatest wish (she used to repeatedly tell me) was that she would live long enough to see me go off to college. That never happened. But as I remember it, she spent her last months in a kind of peaceful resignation. I think that she had accepted death, after having it on her doorstep for so long. Death is your friend. Death is the greatest exclaimation point to life. And after all, the whole life-death cycle is just a very convincing illusion...
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I don't dwell on the subject of death too much as I find it a bit depressing but when I do I don't think about myself dying I think about the people close to me dying. I am not scared to die as it in some way I feel will be a relief as you would never have to deal with the unpleasent moments of life ever again. I don't beleive in god in such that I beleive there's a dude up there wearing a white towel and has a beard but I beleive there is something out there to make our lives possible. Both my grandfathers died of cancer and as they both lived over 2000 km away from me I never saw them that much but when I did see my poppy before he died he told me that to him death wasn't an end to life but merely the beginning of a new chapter. I was said because to me this was a chapter I wanted to read but I would have to wait until I saw him again after I died if we ever meet up again. So what I am saying is that death may seem final and an end to everything but as long as those who died are kept alive through the memories of others then they never will truely be dead.
I've thought about it before.. wondered would it would be like to be laying in your deathbed, waiting for it to come. But I want to be happy and excited- not knowing whats ahead, like stepping onto a new roller coaster- you don't know what's going to happen, but you want it to be fun and new and exciting. My grandma's dying of a brain tumor, and she's kind of set on not having all this treatment done to her. She decided that if the brain tumor grew back, she'd just let it keep growing. I'm not really close to her, none of us are, she lives by herself about 45 minutes away in Peoria (desert city) but my mom goes up every few days to give her her medicine. She doesn't seem scared to die
