And once again I see why I was nudged to check all of the support forums instead of going to what for all intents and purposes has become a combination group therapy and family  on the Depression forum where we deal with many causes of depression. It is one of the most supportive, caring groups of people I've met and if you check out the front desk you'll get an idea of who we are.

But that is for later, on a day that you are up to it. We recently got a "new" contributor--she'd been reading posts for over a year before she got up the nerve and trust to post.

Thank God for Hospice. My Grandma had just signed on 2 days before she died. Because of that, we got to spend time with her after she had passed and weren't rushed out.I was the one who noticed she hadn't taken another breath in and had to say the words, to watch Mother listen for a heartbeat that wasn't there. She was over 100. And I still miss her dreadfully even though I was lucky to have her into my 50s. She was still living in her own home when she turned 100.

Mother had her medical and legal power of attorney because Grandma really couldn't write well by then. She and Grandma had talked for years over neither of them wanting extraordinary measures to be used to stay alive. Yet when it came time to sign the papers Mother had a lot of trouble doing it. She felt like she was signing her mother's death warrant. After the fourth time Mother rephrased it and asked again, Grandma finally told her to just sign the damn thing. The hospice worker said they certainly had no doubts about Grandma being sure of what she wanted. By that point, she wanted to stay in that room, with those nurses.

We'd taken her upstairs to have her nails done, and she'd been in the wheelchair longer than we'd expected. Her legs were more swollen and horribly painful. She said she was afraid the reason she'd lived so long was because she wasn't good enough to make it into Heaven. (And Mother and I looked at each other with the same thought--if she couldn't get in, we were in big trouble...) A few nights after this, she dreamed that she was at a party with all of the people she had loved and missed. After awhile, she realized that the room was so large and the colors so magnificent that it could only be in Heaven. She wasn't that thrilled to wake back up in her worn-out old body the next day, and she died a few days later. One of the nurses had come in to say good-bye to her and warn us that the process had started and she would be dying that afternoon.

He couldn't have told you about that party, but I know in my soul he got to see it. The nurse told us that it had become a signal to the staff that someone was nearing the end when they had that dream. It comforted Grandma, but it also made me see just how few the strings were tying her with us compared to all the people waiting for her. She kept trying to surface that day and couldn't...but when I went to sit by her and held her hand, she was able to squeeze my hand and that gave us all the chance to tell her how much we loved her, were proud of her, and how much she'd meant to us all our lives. When Mother talked to her, Grandma cried. We told her it was all right to let go and go back to her party. She was gone an hour later.

Grandma died of congestive heart failure--she wore a size 8 when she went into the nursing home and we buried her in a size 18. Mostly her body was just worn out. Her skin was like tissue paper before she started retaining water. But she was at the one place in town she had ever wanted to go to if she had to go into a nursing home/assisted living.

You brought your love home and he didn't die in the hospital as he'd feared doing. When you helped him sign that form, you were saying "I'm getting you out of here. You won't die here." And I'm sure that on some level he knew it. We would never have known that Grandma was consious those last hours if I hadn't gone over to take her hand. I don't know how she was holding on--her body was ice cold and it was the same temperature then that it was at visitation. It had always been the 4 of us--Grandma, Mother, my sister, and me. When I had gotten in town, the first thing that Grandma told me was that she could go now that I was there to take care of Mother. My sister had moved back to town and their new home had room for Mother if she needed a place in her old age. Grandma just had to be sure that Mother would be all right. (Let's put it this way--my grandparents usually rented a condo in Florida during the winter months. Grandpa needed it for his heart, but Mother had been ill. I had to promise Grandma that I would rat out my mother and tell her exactly how she was really doing so she wouldn't be worried the whole time they were down there. I felt guilty, but I couldn't tell her no. I did warn Mother about it......)

Even if he couldn't see, he could smell that he was at home and not in a hospital. The pillowcases and sheets smelled like home. And when you got close to him, he could sense you  were there and absolutely could feel your love. As for the ICU...don't beat yourself up about not being able to be there.If you had been, he would have been trying to surface to worry you less and it wouldn't have helped either of you. I'm so glad that his family shared his ashes with you. My family knows that I want anything that can still help someone passed on and where I want at least part of my ashes spread. If anyone wants some of them, fine. It means that when everyone wants a piece of me at the same time, I'll finally be able to do it.

Did he make the flower bloom? of course. When a dear friend died very suddenly, she came to my sister-in-law twice in very vivid dreams to tell her that she was just dead--she wasn't gone. I had an anniversary card from her fall out of cookbook shelves about 2 years ago...and I don't put cards there. I had sent her husband an e-mail after the funeral to lend support.Not for him as much as for her, because he was being a real ass. I had the screen flash blue, and then tell me my message had been sent with her full name. I didn't know what her middle name was until after she'd died; it wasn't in the computer at all. Being an ass was talking about getting rid of all of her things and putting them in the dumpster before she'd been dead a week.

My contacts seem to be more physical--I had Grandma put her hand on my shoulder and squeeze it when I was in the hospital. The only way a person could have done that would have required having the IV pole coming out of their head. I was wide awake since the fire alarms went off at 3 AM. I had figured that as long as the nurses weren't concerned about it I didn't need to be. The next time we were trying to pick up the house before our son's in-laws to be came here the first  time. I'm handicapped, and I tire out easily. Grandma had always been an immaculate housekeeper. I have a picture of her on my mirror, and I told her that I was only going to lie down for an hour. that I'd set the alarm and then get up and do her proud. What happened next really surprised me. I was sitting on my bed. The door is 6 feet away. the door slammed shut, the lights went out, I got pushed back on the bed, and I slept for 2 hours. In fact, my husband had wanted to know why I'd slammed the door and it wasn't me.

But the best contact was with my son. He'd fixed supper, promising me that he'd do the dishes afterwards. I kept waiting, and he ended up going up to bed and leaving them for me. I was finishing up the 3rd and final sink of dishes when he came into the kitchen to get a drink. By then I was leaning against the sink to hold me up and dripping wet. He left, then came back in with an odd expression and asked me if I'd like him to finish the dishes. I said it would be wonderful and left. The next morning he told me he had almost made it to the stairs when a thought came into his head. "Did you see all the things you left in the sink for your Mother to do?" He asked me if that had been Grandma and it absolutely was. Especially since he's always called me Mom instead of Mother. Nice to know that I was still being taken care of.

If the phone rings and no one is there...a special song comes on--even license plates with his initials..he's around. When we think of those who have crossed over with love, they know it. His love for you is no longer filtered through sickness and pain but is deeper and brighter than ever. Who we are and whom we love survives death. When my father died I had just turned 19 and I was terrified by it. I still had both sets of grandparents, so I hadn't really experienced anythng that intense before.

One afternoon I felt myself wrapped around in love that was unmistakenly my Grandpa.I got the phone call telling me that he had died about 10 minutes later, 150 miles away. He told me goodbye and let me know that love survives death.That was a very special parting gift and I haven't been afraid of death since then.It wouldn't surprise me if it took a little longer with your life partner simply due to all the pain he went through. That's the worst part of lingering deaths....we don't want them to be in such pain but we don't want to say good-bye, either.But the instant he left his shell behind, the pain was finally gone and he got to see colors so beautiful that they made the ones here look colorless.

I hadn't planned on getting over to the support forums tonight, and usually I would have gone straight to the Depression forum. Instead I was scrolling on to the end of the support groups and saw that there was a recent grief posting. So I'd say I got a fairly large nudge in your direction, so that you would know that someone else out there had heard you.

Pain dies. Love doesn't. I'm sorry that you had to lose such a wonderful man, but he died knowing that you loved him so much that you didn't leave him or make him suffer alone. That takes a lot of love and a degree of committment that is too rare in this world. Needing to sleep here and there wasn't not being there for him. When he was getting worse, you didn't bow out. A lot of people have run out on those they claim to love for situations that didn't compare at all to what you went through. He loved you, and you truly deserved his love, you know. I'm sorry that he's dead, but it seems that you were both fortunate to find each other.