I'm going through something similar with my dad now. Not quite there yet but it'll be sooner rather than later unfortunately. I'm afraid of facing the world without his wisdom and guidance. Cherish what time you have. That's all I figure I can really do.

All the best. I hope he passes peacefully when his time comes.

The very thought of this has been haunting me lately. Godspeed

I too am going through it now. My father is in the last stages of metastatic head and neck cancer and day-to-day. Mine took off with his secretary when I was 12 and was never a good father. Even with him it hurts to know he dying and a sense of loss is building. I can't imagine how it must hurt for those of you with loving father.

I'm very sorry Greg.

Saying "Goodbye" to fathers. It has been 19 years since I first had to do it, but I was lucky because I realized how much we loved each other years before and had the leisure and pleasure to be able to make time. When my Dad was 94, he was ready to go. He went into the hospital for tests, had a bad stroke and did not regain consciousness. My sisters and I were letting him know we understood he had to go. and I remember his last breaths.
With my FIL, he too knew the end was near. The last words I said to him were thanking him for sharing his daughter with me.

Be strong.

Les

Greg (and others), you have my deepest sympathy as you face something that I haven't yet, but I will. Knelt beside my grandmother's bed in the ER a few years ago with tears flowing as she was unconscious, struggling for each breath through an oxygen mask, and told her it was OK to pass over...Papaw was waiting for her on the other side. Bout an hour later she did. My long time former girlfriend was a hospice nurse, and I still recall how she told me patients struggle and fight and then when end is near a calm peace comes over them in the final hours. Take solace in that...death is a peaceful, natural transition....but that doesn't make it any easier for those left behind. There are some phenominal people on this board...wiped away a few tears as I read and typed this reply. My best to each of you.

If ever there was a thread that needs a reply from Tweeze, this is one...she has the hospice experience to help you all get through a tough time. Much sadness here at this moment....be well...

The father/son relationship is rather complicated in my family. Dad was raised around a few tough old Samurai types in a pioneering family that settled part of central California. They grew up really hardscrabble and made a living buying and parcelling tracts of land, farming, speculating on grain, etc. They never said things like "I love you".

We went through a few scares over Dad's health. The family pulled together and we were always there as a family with him. The last scare was when he hit his head and had a subdural hematoma. Basically a giant blood clot that took about a quarter of his skull capacity. Just before surgery I was the last person to talk to him. I asked the doc "As long as you're in there, can you just dial up his hearing too? He never hears his phone ring and it drives us all crazy". Dad and the doc had a good laugh over that. I felt closer to him then than if we had said goodbye or something. He still kicks my ass to this day if I leave his tools out or don't close the gate when I leave their house.

How wonderful that you can be there with him at this hour. We all leave this life sometime, somehow. What a blessing it is to go in the arms of a loved one. My dad had Alzheimer's and didn't seem to know who I was, but who knows what he was really thinking. I like to think he knew I was someone he loved and trusted at some level, even if he couldn't say my name.
I don't want to get too technical, but how do you feel changed? I remember when my dad died, I realised I was suddenly (as the oldest person in my family) the family patriarch. A whole generation had thought of my dad as the family leader, and suddenly the leader was me. All of a sudden I wasn't a son any more. The change was subtle, but feels so profound. All my life I was this man's son, and now for a few years I was to take his place at the head of the table.
Sorry for the hijack.

My deepest sympathy for you and your family.

No worries. That's certainly a part of it. Another part is the total role reversal. I'm 57, he's 99, and for all of his life he felt, right or wrongly, that he had to look out for me. Now, in his hour of darkness, I'm looking out for him. Because its been so darn long, its maybe particularly hard.

But what I meant by changed was more about just walking very close to the precipice with him, looking over the edge, and telling him it was ok to jump.

I'm agnostic, so its odd that I find this so profound, but there you go.

And I love all you guys, and do appreciate the kind words. But I don't deserve them nearly as much as guys like Fred who have lost children.

The change for me when my father died was a sense that the 'true North' was no longer there for my internal compass. Took a while for that to pass.

Stay strong. Stay present. It's the best gift you can give.

When you emotionally close to a person you begin to pick up on things, that is why I mentioned sensing someone waiting patiently for my Mother to cross over. A way to put it is you channel emotions and imagery from someone you are particularly close to.

Sandy's family's faith was Jewish yet all the time I knew her she proclaimed to be an Atheist. Towards the end she said saw Jesus.

i wish for you,,strength and peace.

my condolences.

Here is something to ponder, you as a child have never been in the world without your parent being in it with you. You maybe estranged but never the less that person is still in the world. So when you parent dies you really don't know that you can survive without them being in the world with you. Of course you can but you don't know it until it happens...It becomes a totally different world for you.

When my Mother was in the last extremis of her life she appeared to be comatose with the death rattle..however I was able to talk to her and she was able to respond ever so weakly..at first she would just squeeze her finger ever so slightly and then it was a slight move of the eyebrow. I asked her if she was afraid she said no with a move of the eyebrow and are you in pain and that was a yes with another move. The same with my Dad he too was in a comatose state yet he heard my words and he let go with within less time than it took to type this out. Again with Sandy my words helped release her from her pain and suffering. So yes they can listen and even respond ever so slightly almost to the very last breath.

Yes, certainly some of that.

We're on day 4 now. God he's strong, and paranoid. Refuses morphine because he thinks we're trying to kill him. We can get Ativan gel on him to calm him and then morphine. He punched me in the mouth yesterday when I tried to put oxygen on him, and pushes me away. I know its not "him" but its hard. He wants to know why I won't help him up and why I'm trying to kill him.

Staying strong, but man, it don't come easy.

I get it. As long as your dad is around you are in some way still a kid. Then suddenly you aren't a kid anymore. It's a shock.

[QUOTE=greglepore;9155796]
But what I meant by changed was more about just walking very close to the precipice with him, looking over the edge, and telling him it was ok to jump. /QUOTE]

That has to be hard. Both of you letting go at the same time in different ways.

I can only hope that somebody will be there for me when that time comes.

Beer got my father. One typical day at age 83 he went to the fridge to get a beer and there was none!

His heart blew up (abdominal aortic aneurism) and he keeled over on the spot.

A few years later, mother passed in quite the opposite manner. Long, slow physical and mental decline. Near the end, Mom was convinced we were in cahoots with her care provider and out to get her.

Definitely very high up there on the 'difficulty-getting-through-it' scale of life's moments. It definitely changes you-and probably should.

This thread has brought up a lot of memories, all in retrospect positive. I did not have to deal with your circumstance(s), however, so my earlier advice is now tempered with great admiration for what you are doing.

As the Navy SEALs chant, the only easy day was yesterday.

Take pride in what you are doing, it isn't for the weak or feint of heart: You will do this because of who you are and the fact that you had to be there, nobody better.

If it is any consolation I was not allowed to see my father die in 1967(I was 21 years old and he was 51 ) as my mother did not want me to witness his emaciated cancer ridden body.

Many years later my mother asked me to come over in July of 2014 to visit her(she had a broken hip) and I said I would be over in September. However she died in late July. So I do have regrets in not seeing my parents in their dying days. So I do have respect for you to hang in there and witness your father's death although of course it is giving you much grief. As my neighbor says(he is 75) they are thinning the rows. My dentist says we are orphans now. Hang in there. Be strong.