TW – I’m currently reading a book where the Protagonist dies and leaves a widower. At some point during her ailment – they both talk about life without her, how he should be or what he should do? I was balling while reading it. I couldn’t imagine having a courage of such intensity.
So here I am asking some of you – what was your toughest conversation with someone terminal?
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Working at a ER and having to talk to the parents of a kid who had just committed suicide.
The toughest one is hindsight is having a mundane conversation with my dad who has dementia. Not knowing that would be the last coherent one I’d ever had with him.
Friend died while working on a project for her parents…She was so focused on making sure that she could do this for them that she never really talked about her diagnosis. We had a lot of discussions about exactly how to complete the project, focusing on every tiny aspect of what needed to happen. It wasn’t the conversations that were difficult, it was the fact that she was so scared of dying that she needed to pour her last few days into making sure this was done properly so her focus could be on something she would be leaving behind instead of the great unknown of death.
And for what it’s worth, the project did get completed.
0930 sunday morning, a Police guy with his car outside (no lights on) knocks to tell me both my parents are dead….
Buying “anata” tea at a marketplace in Japan with a voice translator that did not recognise the word anata. Instead, it auto translated it to “anal”. So with my speaker on a 100% volume I asked an old lady manning the stall if I could buy anal from her; on which she politely responded “sorry, I don’t sell that”.
I had to explain very carefully that I didn’t meant to offend her. Luckily she had a great sense of humor and laughed for like 2 min about the incident on which she gave me the tea for free.
Dad was terminal, and I was the “social boundary” for my parents. He had a couple weeks left, and my mom needed to focus on just keeping him comfortable. I was the one who had to go meet with his friends, cousins, etc, and tell them whenever they saw him last, that was the last time they’d see him alive. He wouldn’t see any more visitors except extremely close family.
I took two weeks off work and it became my full time job just having breakfasts, lunches, dinners, cocktails, etc, with people who would never see my dad alive again and letting them unburden themselves without judgment. I can’t pick what was the hardest, every single person spent their 2 hours or so with me flip-flopping between their happiest stories about him and just sobbing.
The most notable was my dad’s cousin, who just couldn’t really bring himself to believe my dad was dying. By the time he finally mustered up the courage to see him, it was too late. He had to give the entire deathbed talk to me, and trust that I would tell it to my dad when he was alert enough to hear it.
After my dad was diagnosed with cancer he gave me power of attorney because he knew I was the only one who would honour his wish about quality of life over quantity of life. Basically asked me to have him legally killed if he ended up in hospice waiting to die.
Not a conversation I’ve had but
I’m 54 and my parents are both still living. They are 84 and 83.. just yesterday I bought my first black tie to keep. It was an acknowledgement of the eventual.