When do you say goodbye?

[Lilalulu]

Hi all, I'm hoping for some advice. My beloved mum is dying. She has metastatic cancer and advanced heart failure, and from diagnosis two months ago has now advanced to the stage of being bedridden, catheterised and unable to eat solid food. I'm living abroad (in the US) so I haven't been able to fly home see her since she was diagnosed a few months back. I was talking with her by telephone every day up until this week, but then she had a rapid decline and doesn't have enough energy or breath to speak on the telephone any more. I'm devastated that she's going through this, and to think I will likely never hear her voice again. I would like to write her a letter to say goodbye, but have I left it too late? I gather from my sister and brothers that she is groggy most of the time now from the strong drugs her palliative care team has prescribed, and doesn't have the energy to sit up, read or watch TV.
I don't know why but I thought I would have more warning that the end was near, but from chatting for an hour one day and then for our communication to be suddenly cut off is quite bewildering.
I've left it too late, haven't I?

Got this online. Hope whatever you do works out x

Thanks GreyBow.

I'm so sorry, how awful for you.

I'd agree with an email, which can be read by a family member or one of the nurses caring for her. I'm a retired nurse and it would have been a privilege to do this for a family.

Speaker phone is also a good plan.

We always talked to patients even when unconscious.. they can still hear

I hope you have the support you need to get through this OP

X

Greybow Thanks I will look into this. I would love to see her if it's possible without putting my Dad at risk.

DareIask Thank you for your kind words. I have great admiration for anyone who can do that. Mum was a nurse also, but gave up work to be a SAHM.

What about sending a voice note so siblings can play it to her? There is no pressure for your Mum then, and she will like to hear your voice. If your siblings feel awkward then they could always leave the room etc.

I’m so sorry about your Mum, we had a similar situation when my Dad was on end of life care just as my brother was posted out with the forces, I will never forget having to see my Dad tell him over facetime that he was going to die soon. The forces did get him home in time but obviously we are living in different times now.

I am really sorry to hear about your mum- I totally understand how you feel. I am in the exact situation- my dad has been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in August and he lives in a different country. I am really struggling with his illness... I think I’m already grieving... Seeing him on zoom so skinny and fragile breaks my heart 😭
I cannot travel to see him at the moment- there is a third wave in their country and they didnt have their jabs yet.. I didn’t have my jab either.
I call my parents everyday ( I always did). But now I call sometimes even 3 times a day..just to chat about anything and take their minds off the illness. I make sure he sees my kids on zoom everyday and we send letters with their drawings.
I also wonder when is the time to say goodbye..and how.. all I want is just to give him a big hug and hold his hand. I hope I manage to go there once we all had our jabs, but if not then I will just have to do it on the phone when the time comes.
It’s so hard.

Send a voice recorded message - works on all smartphones - and ask a family member to play it. That way your family member doesn't need to read anything out loud, and they can step out of the room if preferred.

Or record and send an mp3 file to the nursing home.

I never got to say goodbye to my mum, terminal illness but died suddenly of a heart arrest, and seven years on I still regret not having that opportunity.

Thanks again to everyone who contributed to this thread. My lovely Mum died this week. I wasn't able to see her again but we did get to speak on the phone. In retrospect though, I would say I did leave it too late to tell her all the things I really wanted her to know. She was in pain, was starting to lose her hearing and was confused from the drugs she was on. So, I would say to anyone reading this, tell your loved ones the things you want them to know, while they can still hear and understand and get pleasure out of knowing them. Especially if you have been given a diagnosis like we were. I hope this helps someone.
Bless you all.

I'm sorry for your loss OP 💐

I'm sorry for your loss op. You clearly loved her very dearly and that knowledge will have been a comfort to her.

I would say that despite being fortunate enough to be physically there with my parents when they died I have some regrets, some feelings that I should have said/ done more. I think that might be the nature of losing someone you love.

I am so sorry for your loss

Thank you all for your kind words. I remember having a discussion with my Mum and Dad years ago where I expressed regret that I hadn't been kinder to an elderly friend who died when I was a teenager. They looked at each other knowingly and then Dad said, I bet there isn't a person alive who doesn't have regrets about how they could have done more for someone who is no longer with us.
So yes, Mwinci, I think you're right and it's part of being human.

So sorry. It's so hard. I'm not sure anyone truly does the 'hollywood' goodbye speech. I knew my dad was dying, he was lucid, he could have understood everything, but we still ended up taking about trivia, cricket and stuff for the final day. I regretted afterwards that I hadn't told him everything, but he knew. It was just too painful to say the words.

Candleabra That is so true. My sibling actually suggested that I shouldn't write Mum a "goodbye letter", but just write to her every day, telling her about the little details of my life as she was always interested, and working in all the nice things I wanted to say about her. I managed to do that over the course of the month. When she was having a good spell she would read the letters over and over.
Sadly she never got my final letter that I wrote when it was clear that she only had days or hours left to live, this was the one where I said thank you for being my mum, and told her she would be alive forever in my heart… but yes, I think she knew.

I'm sure she did. And you knew too.
What we do in the whole of our lives matters, not just one conversation right at the end. You're just never ready to say goodbye to some people.
So sorry about your mum.

Candleabra Thank you. She knew exactly what I was going through as her mum died of cancer also, many years ago when mum was in her 30s. I know I was lucky that she got to be an old lady and so I got to have her for most of my life.