Is it best to visit a dying friend (again) or should I keep last week's positive images?

Question

I have a very good friend that for the last 9 months has been bravely fighting a brain tumour. He's a few hours away and I've been visiting every month or so so I've experienced some of his highs and lows. I visited last week which I enjoyed and he was in good heart, feeling positive and we were planning on how we were going to celebrate the 1 year anniversary. Just a few days later, I hear that he has gone downhill fast, there is now no chance of recovery and that now he's unlikely to last a day or two. I can visit tonight but he won't know I am there.

Should I go and say my last farewell or retain the memory of last weeks positive images?

ps I do plan to go, but would welcome other peoples viewpoints

Answer 1

It depends on who you are visiting for yourself or your freind.

If you wish for a good memeory I think you will retain one anyway as you will have had many more good ones than bad. If you are very apprehensibe than it namy not be such a good idea for either of you.

I hear what you say about he will not know yo are there but I am not sure that is true.

When my father died he was on his bed after having had a stroke a few weeks earlier he had recovered but then took a steep nodse dive for the worse as the tumors on his brain were still there.

We had been through a patch of tension after his new girlfriend moved in and tried to shut the family out (eighteen months after my mothers death) but the relationship with my father was still strong. Having raced back from London to Lincoln to see him and almost having to break in past his girlfriend, I found him lying there motionless, unable to speak and move or open his eyes.

I moved to the bedside and picked up his hand which felt like a lifeless weight. I said hello and and told him it was me, as I spoke to him he gripped my hand how, I do not know how as he was very weak at this time and he died six hour later.

What is very strong in my mind is that he knew I was there and wanted me to know he knew.

It is for you to make your own mind up as to weather you go but this is just my experience.

Answer 2

Its one of those catch 22 situations...if you go, for a time after he has passed you will have sad memories of how he deteriorated which will in time be replaced by happier memoried but your initial ones will be of how poorly he was...if you don't go you will beat yourself up saying you should have gone...If this friend has got to the point where he will no longer be aware of your presence then, if you do decide to visit him, prepare yourself as it will be far more upsetting for you than him. My dad was in a hospice and I was with him when he passed away, I feel blessed that my dad was still my dad, knew who I was, but was just tired out...I still remember the man in the bed opposite and his family, he didn;'t know them, he didn;t know much and it was so sad...I feel if you search in your heart you will know what to do...Your friendship and the love you had for each other will always be there....and maybe it is best he slip away with what little dignity he has left....the main question you have to ask yourself at the end of the day is Would he want you to see him like this?? Take care and I am sorry for waffling on...I do hope you get thru this Hugs xx

Answer 3

I know it's hard, but I would go...for you mostly....and...you don't really know if he will know you are there or not.

I'm sure that if you are close to him, he will feel your presence, subconsciously at least, and I don't know about you, but I would want all the positive vibes I could have at my side in my last hours.

No matter what you see/experience this visit, you will ALWAYS have the positive images from before and no one can take those away from you.

I'm sending strength your way in your time of need.

Answer 4

I know it's no conciliation, I had a friend who was very bad with cancer, he's still alive, however in his baddest days although it killed me inside, I visited him. With tube sticking out of his nose, I even wheeled him around London on a Gay pride march, he held the drinks. Although it hurt to see him so bad, in so much pain and with no energy even to watch TV I forced my will on him and made him come out with me. If you don't do it, you'll regret it, imagine him waiting for death or waiting for a friend which would you like to see first. Hard words, I also know a friend who had a brain tumour but fought it of with treatments, he and his therapist believes positive thinking helped a great deal to built up his immune system. Visit, it will do more for you than for him.

Answer 5

In the last 6 months I have lost both of my grandmothers and I had one that was out of the blue and the oter i was in the room when she passed away. The image of her passing away was hard to cope with but there was nowhere else I would have wished to be. I got to tell her that I loved her, the other gandma I hadn't seen in months as she suffered from alzheimers, and even to this day I would give anything to have told her that i loved her even though she may not have remembered. My advise is to go and see your friend as hard as it is it would be harder on yourself to think back and know that you could have seen him and didn't, than it would be to look back and know that you did go and see him.

Answer 6

YOU SHOULD GO!!! I think you will regret it later, if you don't...

My dad was dying of lung cancer, and the same day he came home I watched him go into a seizure. I said, "Dad!" and my brother was trying to get him to respond while calling to him. For a split second, something changed-I thought to myself, "he's dead!"... A good friend of the family was there, who is a little more spiritually perceptive than most... she later told me that for a split second, the whole area around him went black-like his aura lost all of its color... and then it came back. After thinking to myself that he was dead, something changed again, and the seizure stopped. He later told my brother that he could hear him calling to him, but he wasn't able to respond... When my dad came home to die, he went through a state in which he couldn't respond-The hospice lady told us that he could still hear everything around him, so now would be the time to say good-bye, or say anything that we may have left to say... and I firmly believe that to be true. I told him that it was ok for him to go when the time came for him to go... I made amends with him, and let him know that we'd be ok... I told him he could check up on us whenever he wanted to (especially on my daughter, his first grandchild who was only 5 months old at the time)... We were all standing at his bedside as he passed, and I am glad that I didn't avoid saying/doing what was necessary, so that both he and I could receive "closure"...

I think you should go say good-bye to your friend, and don't be afraid to talk to him out loud-It feels a little strange to do it, at first-but your friend can hear you, so get past it...

I wish you luck, and I hope you are able to go say good-bye to your friend... I don't think you'll regret it.

Answer 7

That's a hard one. Been there and done that. If your friend was expecting you wanting to see, you would have no choice. You would have to be there for your friend. It's possible he may not even know you there. But, years from now when you think of your friend will it be of how you didn't get to see him that last time.

Answer 8

I think i would go, memories are important, but for me the balance between wishing I had gone and keeping a positive memory swings in favour of going, you will still have your good memories such as the previous visit.
Hugs to you.

Answer 9

I would go... not to say "goodbye" - but just to be there...no matter what happens you will have last weeks images forever....this may be the last time you can be together and you may never forgive yourself for not being there with him during his time of need...Sorry that you are losing a friend....I hope your being there will remove any fear or pain ... : (

Answer 10

I say go. It will be bad but at least you won't have any guilty feelings later on. I watched my father die of cancer. It was not a good thing but at least I know I was there at the end and in some way I think he knew I was too.