Posted on 11/28/2017 12:14:45 AM PST by beaversmom
As a divinity school student, I had just started working as a student chaplain at a cancer hospital when my professor asked me about my work.
>SNIP<
"I talk to the patients," I told him. "You talk to patients? And tell me, what do people who are sick and dying talk to the student chaplain about?" he asked.
>SNIP<
They talk about the love they felt, and the love they gave. Often they talk about love they did not receive, or the love they did not know how to offer, the love they withheld, or maybe never felt for the ones they should have loved unconditionally.
>SNIP<
They talk about how they learned what love is, and what it is not. And sometimes, when they are actively dying, fluid gurgling in their throats, they reach their hands out to things I cannot see and they call out to their parents: Mama, Daddy, Mother.
>SNIP<
I have seen such expressions of love: A husband gently washing his wife's face with a cool washcloth, cupping the back of her bald head in his hand to get to the nape of her neck, because she is too weak to lift it from the pillow. A daughter spooning pudding into the mouth of her mother, a woman who has not recognized her for years.
>SNIP<
They tell me what it feels like to know that you abandoned your children, or that your drinking destroyed your family, or that you failed to care for those who needed you.
Even in these cases, I am amazed at the strength of the human soul.
>SNIP<
When the love is imperfect, or a family is destructive, something else can be learned: forgiveness. The spiritual work of being human is learning how to love and how to forgive.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
yes, that’s true.
I want to die full of gratitude for the life given me and with complete trust in my Creator.
bfl
That also often talk about God and beyond death
Non believers seem to have a less peaceful exit
Just my own observations and that of an oncologist friend
Yes David was estrange from ex-wife for she didn’t want to have nothing to do with him & took him to court for everything leaving him to file bankruptcy. As for his daughter I think he still has doubts that is his flesh & blood . It is in the air whether she is a Cassidy. However,no doubt she has the Cassidy smile & cheeks. At least now he is in peace knowing that one night David experienced & received the Holy Spirit.
I was not around when my parents passed away since they slipped away suddenly & peacefully. The only thing was asking God to forgive my father. I was closer to my mother than my father.
“I wish I had spent more time in the office”.
Said no one on their death bed, ever.
I will never understand why I was taught that God was good, but allowed so much suffering.
...
Some great thinkers believe it’s the price we pay for free will.
My father in law was in a nursing care as his stomach cancer was advanced. His room was for two patients, thus it had two beds and recliners. However, he was the only patient in the room.
Since he was the only patient in the room, I sat in the recliner for the other bed and prayed while my wife spent time with her father.
I prayed that the portal would open up for him. It did, and I felt the radiant light. I prayed that people who knew him would come and greet him through the portal. His older brothers appeared (He was the youngest of nine and the last living.) I did not say one word nor move from the recliner.
He turned to his daughter and said, “I like the welcome committee.” She thought he was speaking of the wedding a week earlier where he got to greet everyone...all his friends and extended family were there.
“That was great.” he replied. “But I really like the welcome committee.” He was elated and passed shortly thereafter.
The interesting part of it was that my wife is a very logical left brained MD psychiatrist. Her belief system expanded that day.
This threat has had a strong emotional impact on me.
I never fully addressed my mother’s death many years ago. My siblings simply moved on, and the family dissipated.
For a new dad I’m old as hell. I have a newborn; when she is 20 I will be 70. I have another one who will be 21 when I am 70. I think about my mortality in regards to them. That saddens me. My entire focus on this earth is to protect them.
Sorry for the stream-of-thought, wardaddy-esque post. I now need to find a cute photo of kittens or puppies.
Please carefully read Matthew 8:23-27
So often we view suffering as some form of correction from God. Or that God is unhappy with us, or it is due to some fault or flaw in us. This is not so and it is also theologically unsound.
For those with a personal relationship with Jesus, He is with us always and He holds you in His hand. He can love you no more and He can love you no less because He loves you fully, flaws and all.
Suffering, though painful and unpleasant for sure, has use, it usually does one of two things. It either draws us to Him, or it causes us to push away from Him. Lean into Him.
My father was at a hospice center and they had said to gather family as he would be passing soon. This was in Kentucky and about 30 family and friends gathered in the room, a large room for this purpose. Everyone was singing hymns and I was holding my father’s hand telling him it was okay to go. He had been a wonderful father and his kids and our Mom were ready, no need to hang on and suffer any longer. I was thinking what a wonderful time to pass on, like a scene from a movie.
He opened his eyes and said, “I’m not ready to go yet”. The room fell quiet. He closed his eyes and continued his labored breathing and the singing started up again.
The next morning he was sitting up in bed eating a large breakfast. He passed several days after.
You just never know when someone is is going to pass on. They let go when they are ready.
Your children are lucky....My parents were in 20’s when they had us, (I’m 66 now) but I never felt they knew what they cared much, and specifically my mother dumped her family 20 years ago, moved with her (4th) husband to another state, and didn’t give a forwarding address. (After she sold our childhood home my dad built, without telling us.) It’s taken me these 20 years to figure a few things out, but dealing with narcissism, bi-polar,(Mom) and alcoholism (Dad) made parenting tough. I’ve tried remembering all this with my Son...The last time I saw my father he said to me “I just didn’t know what to do”...and I knew he was talking about fathering...after his death I learned HIS father had committed suicide by hanging himself in the family home when he was 14....It explained many things.
Anyway...I’m trying to say, your children will love you because you CARED, and ACTED like you CARED about them, ie loved them.
I believe this is a very large factor in non traumatic deaths. I have seen a lot of cases where someone is expected to die, but they seem to hang on (even when not conscious) until someone they love makes it to the bedside.
What you wrote is an absolutely normal and good viewpoint...and natural, I would think.
I always try to keep in mind that nothing is guaranteed, including living until 70. Or even tomorrow.
Do the best you can, while you can, and appreciate it all..:)
My mother died 5 years before my dad (she was 14 years older than he was). I spent days at her side in the hospital where the medical staff tried hard to save her. I spent the time talking with her, cooling her face with a wet washcloth and giving her ice chips for moisture. But in the end, she pass peaceably as I sat there crying.
My father had packed his car for a trip that day from Arizona to California to visit his last remaining foster sister. He was having coffee with his buddies when he started feeling bad and they took him to the hospital. He was alert and joking with the nurses, as was his way, when I arrived. Within a few hours though, he was gone. I was sitting at his bed when he passed in his sleep.
Neither one of them talked much about their life or regrets in the end. They both were planning on getting out of the hospital and going home. We talked about everyday things they were doing. But neither one made it home.
I am grateful to have been at their sides when they passed. They lived long, productive lives and were great people and parents.
I hope when my time comes, that I display as much courage and love as they did when they died. May they both Rest In Peace.
My mom’s best friend was singing hymns the last time the aide at the rehab center saw her while doing their rounds. She was not alone.
Not long before he died my father talked about how he hadn’t seen his parents in a long time.
You may never know how big a gift you gave her. I can’t think of a better way to die.
What a very blessed woman.
Rosebud.
My husband only lived 15 days after his diagnosis of an inoperable GBM brain tumor (same as McQueeg says he has, but he is still alive). Before he slipped into a coma, he told my mother to take care of me. As always, he was thinking of me. It broke my heart that we couldn’t have one more conversation. I wanted to tell him to look after our daughter who died 3 years earlier. He died one hour after I left his side for the day. I don’t think he wanted me there when he went. He was a gentle soul, and I miss both him and my daughter every day.
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