By the time my father died, he had been unconscious for a number of days.\u00a0 I had been home for the 4th of July (see monologue<\/a>).\u00a0 Before I left, he was taken to the hospital.\u00a0 He was supposed to come home after the new treatment, so I had a plane ticket for July 23.\u00a0 By that time it didn\u2019t look as though he would be getting out of the hospital, but I went home anyway.\u00a0 When I got home, mother told me I was the last to know.\u00a0 He\u2019d died while my plane was in the air.\u00a0 It was pretty clear to me that, though unconscious, he somehow knew that help was on the way to my mom and it was OK for him to let go.<\/p>\n I also wrote, in March of that year:<\/p>\n My father\u2019s health is worse.\u00a0 The throat cancer has recurred and there isn\u2019t anything they can do about it this time.\u00a0 He will probably die by choking on his own blood.\u00a0 What a horrible way to go.\u00a0 I cried when I heard about it, thinking about that poor man facing such a death with no resources at all, no self-discipline, no spiritual faith, no courage and dignity strengthened by practice.\u00a0 He\u2019s spent his whole life avoiding discomfort, now he has to face this.\u00a0 Unless the habit of denial allows him to avoid the knowledge of his death even at this point.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Another friend’s husband had ALS. \u00a0I believe the death from that is a horrible one, the person essentially stops breathing. \u00a0As John was getting closer to death, at what would be his last Thanksgiving, his five daughters all gathered for a farewell dinner with their dad and mom. \u00a0That afternoon, they all went off to do things, and when they were all gone, John died. \u00a0I’m sure he wanted to spare his loved ones the experience of his actual death.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve been collecting death stories for a long time. The first is from my ancestor Jenny Murdoch. I\u2019ve been told a story about her, I like to think of her as my mother\u2019s mother\u2019s mother, but it\u2019s too late to … Continue reading