Being with him while he took his last breaths has been the most heart wrenching thing I have ever experienced. How people get over this is at the moment completely beyond me. Sorry to write this but for some reason it helps

Don’t apologise. There’s many here who’ve gone through the same situation and can completely understand. My dad was diagnosed with cancer last week and it brought it home that the man I looked up to my whole life isn’t invincible. It sucks, and I’m sorry you had to go through it, but I’ll bet he was glad you were there.

Sorry to hear that pal.

Don’t be sorry. You were there for him. He would have taken comfort from that.

Sorry for your loss, I lost my Mum before Christmas my little brother and sister were with her and they have found that a comfort since, as have I knowing they were there. It’s a strange feeling, just allow yourself the time to feel the way you want to feel without putting pressure on yourself. You will find peace with it.

Nothing to apologise for. My parents are getting older and more frail, despite all the disagreements over the years I’m dreading it coming to that point, I’ll miss them terribly.

You were there for him at the end. However hard that may feel at this point in time, think of the comfort that must have given him. I know a lot of people that look back after the loss of a loved one and regret not being there at the close.

Feel for you, had the same last May with my mum. You don’t get over it. The pain just gets less intense.

Sorry for your loss OP it must have been very hard seeing him go but it was good you were able to be there for him.

As above , sorry for your loss and nothing to apologise for , you were there for him right up to the end … remember the good times 🙂 … i know its hard …. I was there for my dad when he took his last breath in 2008 , 8 weeks later i lost my mom as well 🙁 … would of been my mom’s birthday today as well if she’d still been with us …. It does get easier, just takes time …. i found it helped to talk

Lots of love pouring from all of the clan here, straight to you.

I guess most of us have to go through it at some point, no idea how one manages or deals with something so powerful.

You were there, you said goodbye, must have some powerful memories to maintain now for you to feel this way.

Sheesh, can’t imagine what your going through, but you will get through, in time, for sure.

Every support. I know the day is coming for mine and I’m scared. Thank you for sharing.

I went through the same a year ago. I know exactly how you feel. it was the most difficult thing I’ve ever experienced but one year later I’m glad I was with him. Time will heal but you won’t ever forget and I’m sure you will reach a point where you’ll feel privileged to have helped see him off.

Massive virtual hug from me. share it with your family.

Sorry for your loss. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be with someone in that situation.

I never had the chance to say goodbye to my Dad, – a massive heart attack took him. Spoke to Mum the night before as they had just got back from holiday to make arrangements for them to pop over and see the Grandkids. She asked if I wanted to speak to him and I said the usual blokey thing “nah it’s alright, I’ll be seeing you in a few days”. Just didn’t expect an otherwise fit and healthy 69 year old to keel over the next day.

It’s not nice, I watched my mum go in a controlled withdrawal of treatment way.. Nothing really happened, I just remember the heart rate monitor screen slowly going less active, family around, holding her hand etc.

My brother died from a drug overdose. Looking back I think that was at least partially as he never coped with our mums death.

As said above, a peaceful passing is the best you can hope for anyone, and you were there.

The pain never goes away but it does get better with time. I’m welling up writing this as it brings back a lot of memories.

Try, as hard as it is right now, to think how your dad would want you to act and do him proud, but also try to realise that you’ll be in a fragile state of mind for a while, and that it’s ok to feel lost and ungrounded and very upset. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t.

I hope that’s helpful.

Thank you all for taking time to comment. It helps massively. We all know this day must come and foolishly believe we are prepared for it. I wish I could go ride my bike.

You were there and there for him. It is an overwhelming experience that is hard to make sense of.

Take care.

Thanks Matty.

Ah dude, I can’t even begin to imagine how hard today has been for you, I’m so sorry. Thankfully your dad didn’t go alone and had someone who clearly loved him deeply by his side.
Take care dude.

Went through the same just before Christmas, , wish you all the best getting through it.

Northwind I read though your thread and it helped so thanks for that.Hope things get better for you too.

I’m sincerely sorry for your loss, OP. I’ve been there, and know something of what you must be feeling. If you’ve got kids, hug them closer tonight. If you don’t, Just hug someone!

Best wishes.

My condolences to you, dropoff. Went through this a few years ago with the mother-in-law, absolutely heartbreaking but you should take some comfort from the fact that you will have provided your dad comfort in being there at the end.

I’ve shared this before, and now seems as good a time as any to share again. Certainly helps my wife when thinking about her mum:

Alright, here goes. I’m old. What that means is that I’ve survived (so far) and a lot of people I’ve known and loved did not. I’ve lost friends, best friends, acquaintances, co-workers, grandparents, mom, relatives, teachers, mentors, students, neighbors, and a host of other folks. I have no children, and I can’t imagine the pain it must be to lose a child. But here’s my two cents.

I wish I could say you get used to people dying. I never did. I don’t want to. It tears a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies, no matter the circumstances. But I don’t want it to “not matter”. I don’t want it to be something that just passes. My scars are a testament to the love and the relationship that I had for and with that person. And if the scar is deep, so was the love. So be it. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament that I can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gouged, and that I can heal and continue to live and continue to love. And the scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are only ugly to people who can’t see.

As for grief, you’ll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you’re drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it’s some physical thing. Maybe it’s a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it’s a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.

In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don’t even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you’ll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what’s going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything…and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life. Somewhere down the line, and it’s different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O’Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you’ll come out.

Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don’t really want them to. But you learn that you’ll survive them. And other waves will come. And you’ll survive them too. If you’re lucky, you’ll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks.

Hope that helps. Im sorry for your loss.

You are sad because your Dad was a good ‘un. That’s good (well not good, but you are obviously grieving a nice person).

I’ve recently lost my Mum and Dad (again, the best folk in the world) and I was distraught at the time, but time does heal. I look back now only with happy memories and the sadness has nearly all gone.

God bless you. I am literally within days of experiencing the same thing with my mum.

I still remember my dads last breaths,I was heartbroken like you are at the moment.
However with hindsight, and some wise words from my dad shortly after his cancer diagnosis, I carried on ,looking after my mum and making sure we talked about him on a regular basis, it’s 6 years now and we genuinely still talk and laugh about the good times we had together.
Death of a loved one is awful, but also inevitable.
Grieving is normal and after that rebuilding and carrying on is also ok
My heartfelt sympathies you and your family.

I’m overwhelmed by the kind sentiments and words from everyone on here. So much more than bikes a whole community family. Goodnight all and God bless.

Sorry about your loss. I definitely identify with the wave analogy above. Just gets less painful to ride them.

Hi dropoff, sorry for your loss and I am thinking of you.

My dad died years ago years ago and my mom in November 2018 very quickly from cancer. It was hard seeing her in pain towards the end but the staff did everything they could to make her comfortable
During one episode of deep sleep I kissed her on the forehead and whispered in her ear that she could go now but she opened her eyes and shook her head. She hung on for three more days and passed away on what would have been mom and dads 60th wedding anniversary.
It does get easier but the first couple of months are not easy but look after yourself and your family.

Sorry for your loss mate. I was there when both mum and my brother took their last breaths, however didnt quite make it in time to be with Dad, and I regret that every day. Take some solace from the fact you were there for him.

Time will heal mate. in the meantime, give those you love an extra hug.

manhugs.

I’m almost in bits at my desk reading this as it reminds me of mum dying just over two years ago. I got the call from the hospital that I should come ASAP but I didn’t make it there for her last moments. I wish I had, for her sake more than mine – I know I would have found it hard, but I honestly believe that she would have known I was there. I know my mum was thee when *her* mum died – my mum stepped out of the room to get something, turned back to the room after a couple of steps to see her mum pass – almost as though she’d been waiting.

I still haven’t “got over it” and don’t hope ever to do so. I don’t want to “get over” my mum dying, but I am becoming better at living with it in a positive way. Hope you learn to live with your dad’s death in the right way. In the meantime, grieve for your loss but celebrate the good times you had together

it’s taken me half an hour to type this as I keep filling up

Took me a little bit of time to post as I’m staring that scenario straight ahead with my mum and dad. Not looking forward to it at all, I’m just hoping the fear of it is worse than going through it.

Thoughts are with you and the only advice I can give is what has been said to me: make time to grieve.

Went through the same with my mum nigh on two years ago.

Was perhaps the oddest experience of my life and there’s not a day that goes by without some random memory flashing up.

My mum dying wasn’t the worst part. It wasn’t looking around and seeing my old man, sister and mum’s sisters sitting around the bed looking helpless.

It was holding her hand, willing her to let go. A few times she would seemingly stop breathing, we would all look at each other with relief thinking “finally”, when suddenly, she would spring back in to life, gasping for breath again. This happened several times. That was für wrenching and hilarious at the same time.

Time doesn’t heal, things just get easier.

Had the same experience as Alpin watching my Dad go. Was next to his bed for the final few hours and after the initial shock of arriving and seeing him in that state, I was just willing his last breath – for him and all of us. Very strange experience to watch someone close die, its both horrific out of context, but at the time it’s cathartic – it needs to happen, there’s no way back for him from here. That thought kept waving over me in those few hours – after this, things won’t be normal any more, what I’ve known until that point in my life changes tonight.

Minutes before he died, we had put potatoes in the oven for dinner. When they were ready, we sat and ate in the next room, the door open so we could see him. It was just weird.

It keeps me awake quite often, partly the whole weirdness of it and partly because it installed a fear of mortality. I don’t know how I’m going to go but if it’s in the same way I want the same level of care that he had. The fact my mum was a nurse and knew how to work the system (in a good way) and a family friend was a local palliative care nurse meant he got the best treatment and ultimately a big hit of drugs to see him off.

Still don’t feel like I’ve grieved properly, I’m not sure what it will take. My sister went to a Reiki healer and had a massive breakdown there and then. I think Dad was more of a rock to her than he was to me. I’d like to talk about with family and it’s not that anyone’s unwilling, there’s just not that much to say and we’ve accepted that.

Feel your pain Op.
My parents passed within a fortnight of each other 6 months ago.
They were both went downhill quickly & passed peacefully, Dad from Sepsis after an op, & Mum from heart failure.
I don’t think it’s something you get over, their absence slowly becomes the norm. I long for them every day. I would give anything to hear their voices again. My Sister has a video of Mum but I can’t bare to watch it.
I block out by not thinking of them too much. It hurts. I’ll deal with it in due course.

My advice is take things one step at a time. Being the eldest, & an executor, I was faced with a lot of stuff to sort out. I just dealt with things one day at a time. Luckily reporting bereavement seems to cut through a lot of red tape & the people at the various agencies etc were sensitive & efficient.

Your in my thoughts chap.