My father stood up one day and fell down dead. My mother went wacky in 1995 and her body died in 1998.
I don't know which way was easier ... when my father died, I was angry --- blindingly, bitterly, viciously angry --- for weeks afterward; that's how I grieve, apparently. When my mother died, everyone remarked on my composure ... when all I could think was that she'd truly left this existence years before.
People being what we are, I guess it's not how you leave, it's the fact that you did leave that's so hard.
Ain't it the truth? Thanks for the prayers.
My step-dad Frank, on the other hand, surprised everyone by having an anneurism. No warning at all. Easy for him, surprising for us. It's something we talked about when mom was sick right at the end, that we'd like to go quick and without warning... maybe be hit by a truck... Something immediate so we would never lay there dying, never to wake, while people sat around and stared at us. Maybe that sounds strange, but Frank and I spent an eternal 24 hours with my mom at the end - where she was starkly different than she was in life... unconscious, lungs filling with fluid, seizures - and it was a hard time to know what to do with.
So when Frank died so suddenly, I thought good for him... he died on the way to the kitchen.