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Just getting something off my chest here. My FIL died the day after Christmas. I hadn't seen him since the summer, when he was terribly thin at that time, but still standing, fixing his own food.


Six months later, he died. When I saw his body, I was stunned at how emaciated he was. I couldn't believe someone could have lived at that weight. Every bone showed. His face was white, eyes closed, mouth open. When I first went into the room, I thought he wasn't even there, he was so thin and made no impression on the bed. He looked like something from a horror film. I was with my grandparents when they died…they looked nothing like this, thank God.


Though he was on hospice the last few days of his life, he should've been on it at least a couple of months before. It would've saved him so much pain. He was in agony when he finally accepted it. He hated western medicine and thought a raw vegetable diet would cure him. He essentially starved himself to death. He was 95 but never wanted to admit he was getting old. He knew more than the doctors, he thought, and he ended up pathetic and wasted.


That image is going to haunt me. He was a mean-spirited bully, but even he shouldn't have gotten to that point. All I hope now is that my MIL will have a better life and will live long enough to enjoy it.

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I grew up watching a lot of documentaries about the Holocaust. Those images are gut-wrenching and seered into my mind. Those poor souls in the camps were the living dead. It's mind-boggling that anyone can survive that.
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I too have been by the bedside of several family members as they passed and it never bothered me.
However when my husband(who was under hospice care in our home for the last 22 months of his life, yet they couldn't get his pain under control especially at the end, and he hadn't eaten for 41 days and nothing to drink for over 25 days,)died, he too looked quite skeletal, and not at all like the man I loved and married 26 years earlier.
It was not how I wanted to remember him by, and thankfully 2 1/2 months later in the very early morning hours of Dec. 6th 2020(the morning after my husbands birthday)I was awakened by a pressure that was going down my entire left side as I was sleeping on my right side. I couldn't figure out what was going on, and as I turned to see, my husbands face was right in front of mine. He was younger, healthy, tan and best of all, smiling. It was a gift for sure, as I now knew that he was ok.
So now when and if the picture of him on his death bed and in the body bag tries to creep in, I immediately replace it with his smiling healthy face that came to visit me that Dec. morning.
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It's hard to see someone in that condition, because it is easy to imagine the suffering that person is going through. As someone who has been there for a cancer patient, I can tell you that they become terribly emaciated. It's tragic and painful to watch. They lose their appetite, they develop horrible nausea, and as if that were not enough, the cancer robs all the calories and nutrition they eat so that it no longer matters what they eat, or don't. The cancer is taking it all. Even now it makes me cry.
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The image that's most bothering/haunting to me is the open mouth one, as my dad had when he passed. When my mother died, the staff at her Memory Care ALF placed a rolled up washcloth under her chin after she passed, which kept her mouth in a closed position for when I arrived to see her. I appreciated that more than anyone will ever know. When the bothersome images pop up in my mind, I force myself to recall a time when my loved one was alive and well and laughing at something funny instead. THAT is a much happier image to keep in mind than the other.
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TG, he chose his exit plan. Be thankful that he got to do it his way, even if it was a hard way, it was his. We all want to be able to make our own choices, especially as we age or get a terminal diagnosis, so he was blessed that he got it. My sister did a pretty similar thing and it was not easy to watch but, it was her life or death and I didn't know how I would cope with a terminal diagnosis at 52, so I loved her right where she was and it was enough.

Geaton, I bawled my way through Yad Vashem. I couldn't believe that one human could treat another so reprehensibly, you have to be a demon to behold and participate in that kind of behavior. To me, it is solid proof that the Jews are Gods chosen people, otherwise they wouldn't have been targeted for annihilation, that failed.

Funky, a dear friend was blessed with a visitation from her husband too. It gave her such comfort and peace, what a tremendous blessing for all who receive it.
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My father's passing wasn't pleasant. The open mouth, last breathes were difficult. Mom's last 24hrs were the worst time of my life. I knew she wasn't in pain but the agonizingly long respiratory failure will never leave me. She finally passed and her body suddenly looked so frail and...gone. The finality sucked the life out of me. I went in and out of the room until hospice arrived to pronounce her death and I was unable to be there when they took her body.

I have been working on focusing less on the end and more on the life she had. At some point I hope those last hours will recede and I will be at peace. I suspect it will just take time. Please take care.
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When I got the call that mom had died, I was in church. I left immediately and went to my Brother's where she lived.

She looked awful, and I was not prepared for that. Lealonnie--I wish YB had done that with mother, her mouth was wide open and it looked so scary. I asked him "can't we close her mouth? YS is going to absolutely freak out". No, we couldn't and honestly, that image is haunting me.

I swear the soul takes up 'space'. She looked tiny, and while she was small, she was not that small. IDK----the mortuary did a beautiful job with her hair and makeup and my OS and I dressed her for burial. That helped me to deal with the shock of how awful she looked right after her death.

I'm glad, for her sake, that she's gone. but typing this is making my BP rise...I guess I am not as 'over it' as I thought.

I've seen quite a few people right after their passing, but mother's was the hardest. She looked like she was in pain....but I know she passed quickly and painlessly.
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My dad looked like that painting "The Scream" when he died. He didn't look like that as long as life was still in him.

I, too, thought that image would haunt me, but a month later I couldn't even conjure that image in my mind. You'll forget, too.
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I'm sorry for your loss.

The body, when its preparing for transition, looks emaciated in some cases. A person approaching death will stop eating and drinking some days or even weeks prior.

I'm sorry that I don't have much feedback on this. I'm sorry that your FIL took the harder road to his transition, but please take comfort in knowing that he is finally at peace. Your FIL did what he felt was best for himself. He made his own decisions even to the dire end.
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Thanks for all your kindness, Forum Folk. I appreciate you!
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This is how my mom looked at the end. It’s absolutely heart wrenching.

She was always a thin woman but she became a skeleton with flesh on it as she approached her end. She didn’t even weigh 100 pounds.

I have never gotten that image out of my mind.
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I was the first person to find my mother dead. The hospice nurse was there but in the hallway. Yeah, it's an experience all right to see it up close.
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