I heard a story today about a woman who's elderly mother was dying. Her daughter said that she just could not STAND to watch her mother go on like this and she wanted to stop her daily visits. This was what she was told: You want to stop seeing your dying mother? This is probably the only thing she has to look forward to--is you coming to see her, holding her hand. You say she doesn't have anything to offer. How can you say that--she is teaching you and everyone that is in her care---how to live and die with grace and dignity. It is your OWN fears and your OWN guilt that is tearing you up. Now suck it up and go every chance you can to sit with her, hold her hand and let her know that her life her on this earth was special, she is special, she is loved and will always be loved, isn't that what we would all love to happen. That when it comes our time to leave the world as we knew it, someone would stop long enough to reward us in our walk home. I was over welmed with this. I found myself in tears hoping at that moment that when it is my time to go that someone will come and sit with me, without thinking like this daughter was. I then remembered how we all sat with my own Mother. How we talked with her, kissed her cheek, rubbed lotion on her hands, arms, legs. Washed her hair. Though we knew she was never to leave the hospital we were there everyday for over a month. We took shifts at first, then we just stayed. We told her daily, minute after minute our love for her. We never once thought that she had nothing to offer us, not once. We just wanted more. Today people are different than they were 20 years ago. Yet I still pray that I will have just an onuce of what my own Mother had. That someone will come and remember all that I had to offer this life. I may not be who I once was--but I am still me. I may not look like I once did--but I am still me. My heart still beats as it did without all this sickness. My mind is still full of the life that I lived and still have,,,,Until we are no more---we are ALIVE!! Vicki Lynn

My Mom passed away the day before Jerry was having his voice box removed. We knew that we were going to loose her. We all live in a different state, my one sister was able to be with her in her last days. I was not able due to the pending surgery Jerry was having. But when it was time for her to be placed in a excellent Hospice Hospital, I was able to call her. The nurse there told me not to tell her to hold on until I could get to Florida and not to get her upset.

She was not able to talk on the phone but the nurse put the phone to her ear and I told her that I loved her and she was a great Mother and she needed to go and see her Mom, Dad and Sister in heaven. I did not cry until I hung up. My sister from Ohio also told her about the same. She passed away the next day.

I think she needed to us to say good bye to her. So she could go peacefully.

Terry

Terry, this is so so true...You know they always say they "wait" for you to tell them to go. I honestly believe this. My Moma didn't go until we all told her too. We just couldn't do it at first, but watching her health decline day after day, we had to stop being so selfish, which all of us are when it comes to loosing someone. My Moma was only 42 when she died. It KILLED all 4 of us kids and my Daddy. He only lived a year longer. He had a heart attack--he was 49. We have always said that we know first hand what a BROKEN HEART LOOKS LIKE-- It looked my daddy after his love of his lifetime was gone. It is not a pretty thing to see--at all..Death is something that the 4 of us learned about at a early age. It is something we also have grown to fear... As we are getting closer to the age that our parents were when they passed away, we see know how precious life had to have been for them. I cannot imagine dying at my age. I just can't. My sister, just turned 50, she told me that she didn't know how to celebrate her birthday. She has spent so many years praying she would make it to it that now she is there she can't stop crying. It is like we all have this mile marker we are praying we make it too. I know this sounds silly, but until you have lived this life,,you just can't understand what we have been thru. I told my sister,,,,I never knew how LONG it was really going to be to MISS them...From 1982 until now--that is a long time to cry.....Amen,,,,Vicki Lynn---God Bless you,,,,Terry,,,

I bet my mom and you're mom are up their watching us.

Terry

Amen to that On my Moma's head stone it says:::Memories are the one gift from GOD that death cannot destroy........It is so so true

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Vicki Lynn,

Time isn't always the healer that it's made out to be. Although we move on, we carry the memory of the loss of our loved ones forever in our subconcious, and now and again they surface in our minds to remind us that we'll all meet again one day.

I used to speak to my mum on the phone every day - we lived about a 7 hour drive away from each other and I remember when she got ill and went to hospital, I didn't want to visit!!I was scared of what I was going to find. Finally I went - I arrived on the Thursday and went home on the Sunday, she died on the Tuesday. She just went downhill after seeing me on the Thursday. It always makes me wonder - would she have held on if I hadn't come to visit - shelley - (she was only 58)

Shelly....I feel that she would have... I have had a lot of my family members and a host of friends pass away...All the stories that I have heard all talk about that...The end....So many hace held on until they see that "ONE" person then they just drift off into that deep sleep...I don't understand it all I don't feel that any one person really does.....I wish you the very very BEST with all of this... Please let us know-------PLEASE@@@--------Always Vicki