I honestly dont have any advice (but I'm sure lots of others will) on where you could go for help for but I wanted to say I'm very sorry for your loss. My condolences to you.

I know you wrote that you didn't want help from a hospice nurse, but do you know that Hospice also has counselors that are there to help the survivors after a death?

(Hospice also has a book about the final stages of living, it may have the answers you are looking for.)

My thoughts are with you.

ML

I'd check with the hospital/hospice Social Workers, they can direct you to all sorts of contacts (my sister used to do this), if they don't know for some reason, they can point you in the right direction.

You may also try your pastor, or a hospital Chaplin, even if you are not "religious" you could ask for a place for the "scientific evidence" your sister needs, they should understand that there is a time for "in a better place" and a time for the more technical aspects.

I'm so sorry for your loss,

Ellie

I am sorry for your loss. Here's website that might help:

Here is a link that might be useful: Death and dying symptoms

I'm very sorry about your mom. I've seen a lot of people die, some horrible and others very peacefully. Not sure what your mom experienced but from what you say it was peaceful. I'm a nurse and we learned about the different stages of dying in nursing school. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D. studied this subject. I found a site where she is being interviewed. I didn't read it all but maybe if you could find one of her books for your sister to read it may ease her mind.

Here is a link that might be useful: Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

I hope you find the advice you need for your sister. My heart is breaking for her, for what she doesn't grasp.

My thoughts are with you, your sister and your family.

I honestly think your sister does need to speak with a hospice counselor or a grief counselor - that's what they are there for.

My best friend lost her husband 3 weeks ago, just as she was arranging for hospice care. The counselors were invaluable to her. He was only 61, and his death was not unexpected, but it was much more sudden than she had been lead to believe.

I believe there is a book by Elisabet Kubler Ross, called "Death and Dying", which I found helpful when my grandmother died.

Here is a link that might be useful: Book on Amazon

You have my special thoughts and prayers!

Sympathy for you and your sister.

Kathsgrdn has some very good advice. When I was in RN training in the late 70s, Dr Kubler-Ross came to our school and gave seminar on death and dying, she was a really great, interesting speaker.

Though I have not gone through this myself yet, I have the unfailing belief that once a person has passed on, all suffering, if there was any, is completely forgotten by that soul. Yes, I am religious, but I think one could believe this, regardless.
I'm very sorry for all the passings you've had to deal with lately, especially that of your birth mother.

I'm so sorry for your loss. My twin sister died with a tiny smile on her lips, and all the strain and pain was gone from her face. I wish peace for your sister.

I'm so sorry for your loss, Lisa. As others have said, a grief counselor or reading a Dr. Kubler-Ross book would be my best recommendation for your sister. It's such a profound experience, and everybody deals with it differently. After being with my dad in his final traumatic hours, I felt the need to write everything down . . . every minute detail, even the horrible ones. It's been 5 months and I still haven't gone back to read it, as some of it is still too hard for me to think about ~ but I feel better knowing it's all documented, because I didn't want to forget anything. Maybe writing about it would be helpful for her as well?

Thanks folks. I do have the Hospice book and described the last 4 stages to my Sis beforehand (she is 41, not a child). I guess when you wittness it, it becomes something else if you are not trained. I did have to tell her to stop calling her back....this was SO hard. She thinks she did something wrong. Mom was in pain and misery and wanted to go be with her husband who died 2 weeks ago. And yes I will say it , to be with our LORD! Mom was ready and at peace with her crossing, she was ready even at the young age of 67. My Sister has yet one more loved person that she is the POA for that lies in ICU on life support, she has to make the decision in the next few days about pulling the plug. I was there for 12 days but cant be there for this decision.I feel so bad for her, the horror of watching Mom die is in her head and making this decision harder. We were lucky that our Step Dad died in a coma, she expected everybody to go that way. I am sad but joyfull with Mom and her Husbands passing.....I am not sure how to help Sis with this next one. What a delimea. I hope he will be sedated enough to not cause her further pain. I pray for his peacefull passing. Please say a prayer for muy Sister she has been through way too much lately.

The link below is different than the other links posted - it is written by a lady who had a NDE (near-death-experience).

She describes what dying would have been like and what heaven and God are like. I like to think this is how it really is. There are lots more NDE's at the site, but this one is my favorite.

Sending my sympathy.

Here is a link that might be useful: Mary's NDE

(((LISA))) My deepest condolences on losing your mother.

My heart goes out to you and your family.

I was with my brother as he took his final breaths as well as my mother in law. Like you, I found it an easement and very peaceful feeling. Both of them were suffering and struggling...I whispered to both "it is okay to leave us!"
One thing I remember from the Hospice nurse!

I think Hospice/greif counseling would help your sister a great deal. They just have a way about presenting things!

I think each person perceives death differently...we never want our loved ones to leave us, however; we know it going to happen. I have always said I hope I go fast, no lingering, no machines etc. I hope the good Lord grants my wish....not for me but my loved ones!

I do not want a viewing much less a funeral! I want people to remember me as the fun loving, happy go lucky enjoying life person I WAS....do not walk past a casket saying "oh she looks so good, she didn't wear her hair that way etc.

Sorry to hijack your post.

Hi Lisa11310,

I am sad that your sister is having such a difficult time over this experience.

My regrets and condolences to all of your Mom's loved ones and I pray that they may find the peace of heart that they need at this stressful time.

As for your wish to hold no gathering of loved ones and friends following your death ...

... don't you think that they will want to have a gathering to honour your memory?

After my brother's death, some friends wanted to come from some distance, so they held a memorial service about a week or 10 days later, with a table at the front holding a vase with a single red rose.

My father died in a car smash a few miles from the farm where he'd lived and moved away from, 40 years earlier. Some friends, mainly family near where he'd lived for a number of years, wanted to attend a gathering, and his former mother-in-law was to have a 100th birthday celebration on a Saturday about 10 days later, so we held a memorial service on that Friday evening. They held another later, near the area in which he'd lived for the most recent 40 years.

Folks in both areas indicated their pleasure that they'd had the opportunity for a gathering to honour his memory.

Actually, such gatherings are not morbid affairs, but rather a happy time, for if there's a reception at the same time, many attenders have the opportunity to refer to some happy occasion that they remembered, relative to the deceased.

Often the loved ones find such an event one that they look back on with satisfaction ... saying that it helped with their process of healing ... brought some focus to it, so to speak.

They held such a gathering for my ex-wife, as well, about 10 days after the event (she'd fought cancer for most of a year) and my brother and his wife flew 1,500 miles or so for that weekend, as did some of her relatives from a distance. My children found that quite gratifying.

In all three of those situations, I think that the person had been cremated, not that that fact has much bearing on the situation, I think.

I think that many of us like to have an occasion related to the leave-taking of someone that we've known and loved, rather than just leaving such leave-taking being sort of left up in the air.

((((((Sister ... and Lisa ... plus other loved ones feeling bereft))))))

ole joyful

I am very sorry for your loss.

Tell your sister that if her mother went out peaceable with no pain or minimal pain, it was a blessing.

We old folks change our attitude about dying as we age out. Those of us who are satisfied with our lives are not afraid to die. What we fear is a long protrated, lingering death filled with suffering and pain. A quit boot out the door is what we hope for. I am seeing that view point now that I have psssed 70 yrs of age.

I watched my mother die from a distance. She lived 400 miles from me and I could not be with her very often. I am very thankful that my sister was close enough to lend support. I photographed my mother on her 94th birthday, and then agian on her 96th birthday. The changes were obvious. These two photos saddened me more than her actual death. I discovered that she had been praying for the Lord to take her in her sleep. Her death had a larger impact on the living family members than on herself. She was at rest at last after having lead an astere life, workng very hard to make ends meet. Her hands were alway busy. She was always grateful for what she had, no matter how much or how little it was. She truly lived by faith.

She was not a philosopher, but she must have thought about my sister and me and her eventual death. After her demise and while we were closing her place, we found a poem about death that she had copied a few years before, and left it in a drawer for us to find. It expressed her views about death. It explained her feelings and eased the effects on us of her passing.

Sincerely,
One who has been there.

I've sat with a few people as they passed on and I remain convinced that the experience they're having is VERY different from the experience we THINK they're having. I've read four billion books on near death experiences (perhaps more) and this is a consistent theme.

One of the most memorable things I read was the story of a man who came into his house late one night and discovered an assailant hiding behind the front door. The assailant stepped out from the shadows and stabbed the homeowner again and again. The homeowner never felt the first knife stab but immediately was *thrown* out of his body and watched these "two men" struggle from his new vantage spot, in the corner near the ceiling!

He woke up some time later in a hospital and after he was healed, he went out and lectured to families of murder victims telling them, "If someone had looked in the window of my home that night, it would have appeared that the poor victim (speaking of himself) was dying an ugly death. In fact, I was experiencing the most peace and calm I'd ever known. I wasn't in that struggle and I didn't feel the pain. It was as if I was watching it on TV. I can't explain this but I can tell you what I experienced."

That story has always remained with me.

Funky things happen at the end of life and I'm confident that the experience is very different to the person who is "dying" than to the onlookers.

I watched my mom die, too and I am sorry for your loss.

Rose

You also might want to check and see if you have a grief support group in your area.

When my MIL and mother died 12 days apart ten years ago, I was completely devastated and went in a deep depression. Someone steered me a local grief support group and it was the most helpful thing to me. Everyone there had either lost a father, mother, sister, brother etc. and knew what I was going through. The best part was not hearing the cliches like "Oh their in heaven now watching over you" "They lived a good long life" etc. I keep in touch with two of the people I met through the group.

I am also very sorry for your losses. My deepest sympathies to you and your family.

Two weeks ago today, I held my husbands hand and looked into his eyes and talked with him as he entered into heaven. I know he is at peace, that his pain and suffering have ended.

I hope your sister can come to terms with the sweetness of a peaceful death.

anette

I am so sorry. I know your anguish. I watched both
my Mom and Husband die. Both times, I felt sorrow, of
course, but relief that they were both free from the
terrible pain they had to endure. My Husband also
died with a smile, as he had been waiting for our
daughter, and she arrived in time.

I can't help you with the facts your Sister is looking
for - but I wish you both much comfort. Your Mom
truly is in a grander place.

I was with my husband, and held him as his body died.
I say body, because I saw(really sensed) something go out of his eyes..and I believe that was when he died.
But...I knew that the nervous system that controls breathing, etc. doesn't stop immediately. Sort of like a wheel that, when it loses it's power source, doesn't stop abruptly, but slows down until it comes to a complete stop.
I held him, as you said, stroked his still face, and watched each breath come in slower intervals...as I told him that it was okay to go.

Went through that with my Dad, Mom, and 29 year old niece ( wife and mother of two little boys). Also my Grandma. They were all traumatic, especially losing my dad when I was just 19. But losing my mom was so hard, we had 6 weeks from when she was diagnosed with colon cancer to say goodbye. The last 2 weeks, she made it plain that although she had hoped to live another 7 months and make it to Christmas, she was done. She wanted to pull the IVs and fade away. The day came that she was mostly in a coma, on heavy pain medication, the nurse was trying to put in a new IV and couldn't get a good vein. She looked at me and I just shook my head. Mom had made the decision earlier, and I just shook my head to say no more, it is time for her to go home. Of course it took several more days for her to pass. That was hard. But the guilt I carried for several more years was nearly unbearable. I felt like I had killed her. It took quite a while to accept the fact that cancer killed her and if she had kept the IV she still would have died, just would have had a couple of pain-filled days more. She was at peace with dying.

I am so sorry about your loss. I hope you can find something to console your sister. vique

You and your sister have my prayers and sympathy.

Tami