Mum nearly 90 and so scared of dying

[izimbra]

My mum is 89, turning 90 in a week. She lives with my sister and is usually in reasonable health. She's very disabled through arthritis and her eyesight is poor, but she has a good appetite, cognitively pretty good, doesn't have chronic pain. My sister stuffs her with healthy food - vegetables, fish, pulses, fruit. Her younger and older sister have passed away in the past 4 years, and I credit her diet and my sister's care with my mum's continued good health.

About 12 days ago she picked up a bug and got very chesty. She's on her second course of antibiotics, is up, eating, her colour is ok, her voice is strong, but she's overwhelmed with fear that she could die any moment. I don't know what to say to her. I try to reassure her by pointing out that all her vital signs are good, that she's eating, she's up and about, but she just says 'I'm so scared, I feel terrible'. I think part of what's making her feel 'terrible' is constant fear.

The think is, at nearly 90 it's not unreasonable to expect that death might be round the corner, and I feel like a bit of a fraud not acknowledging this to her when she says it. I don't know how to comfort her. I just try to listen and then distract her with family gossip, but it makes me sad to think of her being scared. :-(

Has anyone else had to deal with this? Any tips?

I imagine the closer you get, the more frightening it is. My 93 year old dad died recently. He was well and active and lucid until the end. he walked 5 miles a day, did the telegraph crossword daily and was still driving.

He certainly was not happy to die and was an undoubtedly frightened to do so.

Being afraid of death and dying seems absolutely understandable, and I am very sorry to hear about your poor mum. I can't help but think that changing the subject or diverting the conversation is not the best way to go. If I were facing death, and feeling afraid, I would really want to be heard and for my fears to be acknowledged. It would help me simply to be heard. There is no answer or solution, and no way around the fact that we are all going to die, but just listening to her fears and reflecting back to her what she is saying might actually be helpful. Once she has spoken all her fears, once you have acknowledged them, perhaps then move on to how you are there, and she is loved, and ask her about what she is glad to remember and to have experienced in her life, one that is unique in all of time and eternity.

Absolutely this. I do think there’s a tendency to imagine that you become reconciled to the inevitable as it looms ever closer, but I think the majority of us want to cling on to life for as long as possible. ‘Do not go gentle into that good night…’ rings true for many.

I found this talk really helpful. It currently costs £3 to download but will become free in about 6 months time.

https://www.greenbelt.org.uk/product/scared-to-death/

Kathryn Mannix worked as a palliative care doctor for 30 years and now helps everyone talk about dying. There could well be other articles and recordings of talks online from the same person that would be free

You can be scared of not existing, but it’s irrational if you’re an atheist.

Talk her through it - if she thinks she’s just meat + electricity when the switch flicks she won’t know she doesn’t exist. Was she scared of what happened before she was alive? Quite.

Currently reading this - it’s a wonderful book.

Well, it may be stupid to you, but not to the several billion Christians on this planet.

thanks penjil.

Another approach

If she's interested in personal anecdotes, I had a NDE in 2005. The experience was blissful. I had to come back because I had work to do here, but I grieved the loss of that place for several years. The message I was given was 'Everyone is welcomed, loved and fully understood.'

@Screamingabdabz
I was responding, specifically, to the incredibly narrow minded and unhelpful statement made by drench.

But of course, it's your right to take wider offence. At least you have your religion to comfort you.

This is such a difficult area. I'm old and have come to terms with my mortality. It's the getting there that's most on my mind. I guess that if at 90 your mum's not made her peace then there's not a lot you can do, apart from what you are currently doing. Never talked about death with my own mum who lived to a great age. When the subject of funerals came up in a discussion I thought that this would be a good opportunity to ask whether she wanted a burial or cremation. She just looked at me as if to say neither.

I would say to her that she's not enjoying what she has left worrying about dying.

And is it the dying itself or what comes after?

@FullFathomFyve what a lovely post.

I'm certainly apprehensive of dying though happy to think I won't go on for ever. It's hardly unusual. I agree though that feeling low post virus is also normal. I hope getting out and seeing some spring flowers will help - I agree about forcing the issue a bit with the wheelchair.

My brother died last week. He would have been 80 next month.

He had Parkinson's disease but what killed him (I believe) was being treated in hospital for an infection, then catching two more infections on the ward. After nearly three months of decline it was a relief when he slipped away. He was quite unresponsive by the time he died, so he had never been able to say goodbye.

He probably had some level of awareness early in his stay - he objected to being given food and medicine but the hospital kept treating him. I don't like to think he was scared to die, but I think he really hated being so helpless.

We all miss him but I honestly feel I have been grieving for months already.

@penjil I understand what you're saying and can see how a belief that tells you 'the most important part of you lives on, and you will be reunited with those you love' must be the most comforting thing imaginable, and a real incentive to persuade oneself of the existence of god. But plenty of religious people still fear death, and go all out to avoid it, despite promises of a much better life than the one they're leading here on earth.

@TeaAndStrumpets I'm really sorry for your loss, you must be reeling 😞

Thanks it was hard to witness. Both my parents died suddenly, it was awful at the time but with hindsight easier for them.

The only answer to this is a spiritual one. Sorry if this offends the atheists, but she's facing a situation where - obviously- everything has to be let go of: family, friends, property, money, her body itself. Not so much as a needle can be carried through the gates of death. Of course she's petrified- it is a situation of total loss of control. It makes all the difference if, as an atheist, she thinks she's heading into oblivion, a state of complete non-being. That is truly terrifying.

Gosh how well informed you are.

This is the sort of comment that makes me lose respect for Christians.

You seem to be advocating that we should believe in God because in contemplating our deaths it's more emotionally comfortable to do so.

But I've already explained that belief isn't a choice. It's where you arrive on the strength of your perception of reality and of truth. Or as the result of indoctrination from childhood.

So there isn't a 'spiritual answer' to my mother's fear. Unless you think I should be trying to persuade her of the truth of a belief that I myself don't hold, and that she hasn't had in her many decades of life.

Just reiterating the obvious. I've come across so many people who don't even wish to engage with thoughts of death. I've been doing a practice called meditation on death for many years now - basically you contemplate that death can arrive at the very next instant.

This thread isn’t the place to say “the trouble is, she’s not a believer”. What’s that meant to do?

I’m an atheist. Being dead is not terrifying to me. I’m afraid only of the process of dying.

I also want to be alive, to have more of life, before I go.

I would wager that there is not a single believer on this thread who conceives of God as a bloke in a nightie! Gosh, I think Richard Dawkins has a lot to answer for 😁
Being a believer (or being someone who has experienced something) doesn't necessarily mean that a person is a cretin. I could cite many believers who have high IQs or who are well-regarded in other ways - CS Lewis, Tolkien, Steve Jobs, Sir Francis Bacon, and many others.

Tibetan Buddhism has studied death and its processes extensively (vide The Tibetan Book of the Dead) They say that intense fear arises at the point of death as a result of strong attachment. You may not know that the fear is coming, then it hits you.