Final months with parent
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Anonymous
| One of my parents has an uncureable cancer with months (maybe a couple years) left. We don’t live in the same state but want to make the most of our remaining time together. Any advice for things you did or wish you did in the final months you had with a (fairly young) parent? Thanks in advance! |
Anonymous
| I thought we had more time and so did my parent. We did not. Say what you want to say now. Love and forgive them now. All was good with my parent, I was fortunate to say how grateful I was to her and her to me (I think I subconsciously knew her time was ending?). But others were not. |
Anonymous
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With my dad, he had a period of 1 week during his final weeks when his energy rallied and he wanted to talk about his life. So I video recorded him. That's the biggest thing, really, to have videos of them talking. He talked and I asked questions, and I heard some stories from his life for the first time. I got videos of him telling the story of how he met mom, how he courted her--they're priceless to me and I think the process was therapeutic for him as well.
With my mom, she wasn't big on talking about her life. We spent a lot of time holding hands and sitting together. I played soothing music to her. Wish I'd thought of the idea of reading to her. Dad liked to be surrounded by loved ones, so we had his siblings and other people visit. Mom was the opposite. She didn't have the mental energy to deal with friends and non-immediate family, and we had a lot less people come to see her. Dad's decline was more gradual, spread over several months. Mom's was much more sudden, and from the time we realized it's beyond treatment to her passing was a matter of weeks. As hard as it was, have the conversation about their wishes and will sooner rather than later. Mom had to sign a bunch of documents mere days before her passing and it was physically very difficult. |
jsmith123
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I'm sorry for your news OP. I hope you are able to make the best of the time you have together.
To echo the other PP, my father did several audio recording sessions with my grandmother when we knew she was dying. I loved listening to them and couldn't believe all the stories I had never heard about her childhood and life. I love that her story is being passed through the family from another era. |
Anonymous
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Agree that now is the time to ask questions about their life (including childhood) and tell them things you remember fondly about being their child.
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Anonymous
| If you can, take the time off and be with your parent. My mom died when she was 67 and I was just starting out in my career after grad school. I took as much time off as I thought I could but in retrospect, I could have taken more and it would not have mattered for my career at all. I dearly wish I spent more time with her in her last days, especially as her lucid periods grew shorter. |
Anonymous
| I’m so sorry op. My dad died of pancreatic cancer 6 weeks after diagnosis. I wrote him a letter as he wasn’t the emotional mushy type. I think it was 7 pages long. In him I thanked him for so may of the wonderful things he did for me over the years. I couldn’t gone on for many more pages but it was emotionally exhausting. After the fact, I remembered some things I left out that I wish I’d put in there. After he died, my mom gave it back to me and said he read it over and over. Hearing that was like the best gift ever. |