[QUOTE=pammy14]
Still feeling I should have been there at the end but realistically she did't know we were there for the last few days.
Don';t know whether to go and see her in the funeral home.[/QUOTE]
Dear Pammy,
Having worked for several years with terminally ill children, I know that very often the dying person seems to wait until they are on their own to die. I know this probably sounds weird, and I have often wondered about it, but it seems to be a well accepted phenomena. In some cases the dying person has died in the time it takes the watching person to go to the 'loo (no more than a very few minutes) after hours and days of being by the bedside. I have wondered if they hold on while some one is with them . . . ?? Who can tell?? But please, do not give yourself a hard time about not actually being there. Perhaps you could see it as giving Win permission to slip away . . . . ??
About the funeral home: I too have found it a comfort to see the person after death. Might sound macabre, but does help to establish in my mind the realisation that the "person" (soul, if you like) has gone, and that only the body is left. However, when Dad died last year, the thought of any of us seeing him in the funeral home was upsetting to my Mum, so I didn't go.
It is such a personal decision . . . . whatever you decide will be right for you.
Thinking of you: Nell