Who would come to see you on your death bed?

Here it is, October already, and my father is still hanging on. He has declined significantly over the months and at this point he is barely able to sit up in bed without help. Come to think of it he does indeed require assistance just to sit up.

The nurses use some contraption (like a crane) to lift him out of a sitting position and wheel him into the bathroom. The technology is fascinating, but experiencing the technology on your own father takes most of the fascination and turns it right into sadness.

Watching my father slipping away is difficult. Many people reading this have gone through the same thing so I am not looking for sympathy - perhaps a little empathy would be nice. The good thing is I have had ample opportunity to tell my dad I love him and speak about all the things that a father and son would want to speak about at the end of life.

I remember my father telling me about how people acted when my mother was dying of cancer. Even close friends and family seemed to walk away and avoid visiting her. When he told me this I was astounded. Granted, I was just 6 years old when cancer took her away from us, but it is still painful to hear that my mother didn't have all of her loved ones in her life at the end. Where were they? What justification and rationalization did they employ?

We're all different. Some are stronger than others. Having spent a good chunk of my childhood in foster homes and institutions I have had the opportunity to see more of the pain in life than the average person. Maybe not more than you, whoever you are that is reading this, but more than the average person. The trauma of seeing pain and suffering up close and personal makes you stronger, but also overly sensitive. At least this is what all those therapists told me as I was going through the hell. And I believe it at this point.

So here I am watching my dad die. And I am a bit sensitive. I am amazed at how some people behave. I don't have it in me to turn my back on a friend or family member at their time of greatest need. I just couldn't do it. It is literally impossible for me to avoid seeing someone I love just because seeing them brings pain on me.

There are times when someone else’s needs come first. When my mother was laying there on that couch in our living room crying in pain and only a few people came to comfort her is something I find hard to fathom. One person that never turned his back on her was my father. And for all the bad things that some people believe he did in his life I can honestly say that I have seen his love for her all my life. It has never diminished. To this day he talks about her almost every day. He loved her with all his heart - despite his human weaknesses. And she loved him back.

So why did people turn their backs on her? What does a dying person do to process the clear fact that people they believed love them just might not care as much as previously thought? Or is it just too painful to the living to witness the dying? And is that enough of an excuse?

In my opinion there are no valid excuses other than an inability to visit and comfort and love the dying. If you truly love someone and you fail to show it then was it really love after all?

What happens when I am dying? Who will come see me? Who will be the one holding my hand as I leave this world? Will anyone? How about when you are dying? Have you ever thought about it? Or is that thought too scary and painful and you push it right back into the recesses of your brain?

When I am dying who will take time out of their busy lives to drive an hour or two and have a few laughs with me? Will close family and friends actually get on an airplane and stop their lives to see me one last time? Do they love me enough? Am I really sure about that?

None of us know the answers to these questions. But they are on my mind these days as I experience the dying process up close. And I am evaluating my friendships and relationships under a new light. I ask myself these questions as I think about my relationships. Would these people come see me? Even if seeing me made them cry? Or would the inconvenience keep them away? This helps me qualify my relationships right now, while I'm healthy.

Maybe I shouldn't be doing this to myself. But I'm the one sitting with my dying father 7-days per week watching him hallucinating, coughing up chunks of blood and falling asleep in mid sentence. I'm left wondering where certain people are. Why haven't they come to see him?

Am I mad? No, I am too emotionally exhausted to be angry with anyone. But I am very disappointed and saddened. I love my father and am tired of making excuses for why this person and that person haven't been able to visit.

At this stage he is no longer reading this Blog. He doesn’t read anything anymore. Reading is too difficult. So I am ok speaking freely here as I know he won’t ever read this. Maybe I'll delete this right after I post it.

Those of you that have taken time out of your lives to visit with my father I cannot thank you enough. It has been the highlight of his days in the nursing home. And those of you that have not I am sure you have your good reasons. The fact remains that we will all one day be approaching death and we will have to look around us and see the people that really care. So who would come to see you on your death bed? Ask yourself that.