Thank you all for your replies, advice and prayers! I appreciate your taking the time to reply. It’s so helpful to hear what others have experienced, especially when these involve significant life events.
Thanks again my FRiends!
What most people do not realize until they have gone through the process of dealing with an elder immutably headed for death; is that around most hospitals and around *every* hospital in any kind of populated area is a vast and yet almost completely unseen population of caregivers; paid and volunteer. And you do not see the volunteers and the paid folks who enter the scene after your elder enters hospice, who might outnumber the paid professionals by maybe 3:1 or even 5:1. Until your elder enters hospice you simply never see them or know they are there. I found it remarkable.
Anyway. The combination of you observing their activities, relieving you of a good deal of the worry because you see your elder is in really good hands, and the relief they provide the elder, it’s just about the best outcome imaginable. Except it’s not really imaginable because you cannot see how good it ends up working out from your pre-hospice condition of angst.
It all ends producing a reality that’s 100 times as good as you think it will be and that is why 99% of people are enormously happy with the process. You absolutely do not need to overthink it.
I was mainly a psych nurse at the end. If there was a comfortable place to go as peacable as possible it would be a hospice. The people who work there are indeed as close to angelic as humanly possible. I do hope and pray these times work out and your loved one is content to the end.