I don’t know how to put it gentler than that. I don’t know how to find even slightly pleasant words to describe what watching a parent die feels like. I don’t know how to even try to explain it without curse words and screaming.
The hell of watching someone die isn’t just the actual dying part. It’s the months, weeks and days leading up to it. It’s the pain of watching day by day the most important person in your life slip further and further away from you while there is nothing you can do to stop it.
You don’t lose this person in one moment. You lose them gradually throughout the whole time they are sick. As time goes on, they become less and less the person that they were before this illness took over.
It’s absolutely terrifying. It’s gut wrenching. It sends you through a whirlwind of feelings and emotions. You don’t even know who you are anymore. It takes over your life.
You become a selfish person. You find yourself hoping and wishing that your mom could just die because you can’t possibly watch her suffer anymore. I can’t believe I just said that out-loud. This is something I promise nobody could understand unless they have been through this pain themselves.
You are burnt out. You are emotionally and physically exhausted. I don’t think there is something more painful in the world than watching your parent deteriorate slowly right in front of your eyes.
You isolate yourself. You can’t believe this has actually become your life. You isolate yourself because there is absolutely no way you can talk about this with the people in your life. There is no way that anyone could understand or even try to understand what this is like or how you are feeling.
You are an absolute mess. Trying to pick up the pieces of yourself day by day throughout the process of losing the most important person in your life.
I wouldn’t wish the pain on my worst enemy. I wouldn’t wish that anyone in the world would ever have to go through this.
There is nothing worse than the absolute hell of watching your mother die.
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I lost my mom 3 months ago today, I absolutely understand, the anguish of watching her die was horrible, living without her is hard to describe.
Robin
So true ???? ????
It will be 4 yrs on March 15th and it still scares me knowing that I have to live my life without her. I’m so thankful that she lived with me and my little family for 15 yrs. She got sick with Pneumonia and died 3 days later. I was laying with her in her hospital bed holding her and singing Amazing Grace as she was taking her last breath which still gives me anxiety when I think of her dying in my arms. I miss her so much!
I just went through this. My mom died on February 13, 2019. You are exactly right on. No one understands and everyone expects me to just move on. It’s so hard.
I’m going through this right now.. two years since my mom was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer and it’s been a living hell watching her battle this and fight for her life. Some days are good, some days are bad. The bad days seem to outweigh the good days. No one understands what I’m going through and it’s so hard at times because you just want to scream “my mom is dying in front of my eyes!!!” Truly the hardest thing to see someone you love struggle.