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comment by ButterflyEffect
ButterflyEffect  ·  1001 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: June 30, 2021

Thanks goobster. Appreciate the advice and well-wishes.





goobster  ·  1001 days ago  ·  link  ·  

One last thought... when you get to see her again, the conversation can't be about what YOU are losing... your loss... your hurt. She can't do anything about that. Do not make your suffering/pain/loss an additional burden for her to carry.

She needs to hear about your happy memories of her. What she has taught you that you will bring forward in your life.

She doesn't want to vanish, forgotten. Spend the time with her remembering the fun, the good, the lessons she taught you.

When someone is facing their demise, their visitors tend to make it about themselves... what they are losing... how their life will be worse when the person is gone. How much they will be missed. The dying person doesn't want to be burdened with that on their death bed. They want to know people will remember the good stuff... the happy stuff... and have some laughs together.

That's the greatest gift you can give them.

kleinbl00  ·  1001 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Counterpoint: back when I was spending every weekend with psychiatrists who worked with the homeless, one of them asked the other how best to address one of her favorite patients, a stoic who had terminal cancer. The more senior of the two observed that letting the patient see her grief was the best gift she could give on the basis that we gauge our lives by the impact we have on others. Knowing others are mourning us permits us to know we are worth mourning.

Being remembered for the good stuff is not the same thing as being mourned for the potential good stuff we will never contribute.