In the mail

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kev

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Today, I finally got hold of a chunk of wood that had been carved into a verse that I find very poignant and moving. I lost my grandmother some 4 years ago ( a few days before our son was born and would have been her great grandson) and I regret, that I signed the forms to have the drugs that were keeping her alive, removed. My father was not due to fly in until the following day, however, I just had to do it and the lines below came back into my mind. She died a day or so later in a deep sleep and since then, I have found it very hard to accept what I had to do, however, whenever I lose someone, I think about the words that I read and they are the way I want to be remembered. They have helped me a few times as well when my cats have passed away.
I will take these to her grave in a few weeks time.

Kev
being very serious - for once

Do not stand
at my grave and weep
I am not there,
I do not sleep
I am
a thousand winds that blow
I am
the diamond glints on snow.
I am
the sunlight on ripened grain
I am
the gentle autumns rain.
When you awaken
in the mornings hush
I am the swift
uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight
I am
the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand
at my grave and cry
I am not there, I did not die.
 
hissy

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kev,

You did the right thing for your grandmother. When the quality of life is such that they are confined to bed, and do not know the time of day, and you were able to help her find her way out of the world in peace, there is no greater way to show your love for her.
 
airprincess

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Kev,

my mother passed away from cancer about 10 years ago. He heart stopped and the paramedics resusitated her, but she was in a coma. Her bones were hollow because the cancer had eaten them up, she had double phenomonia, and she was brain dead. We left her on machines long enough for the family to say their last goodbyes and then we let her go. I don't regret that for one second.

From someone who has been there, you did the most selfless thing a person can do.

bless you
 
kiwideus

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Kev, that poem gave me goosebumps. I think I will give that to a friend who lost her children and hubby.

I agree, you did the right thing.

((((((hugs))))))
 
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kev

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Originally posted by WellingtonCats
Kev- Did you write that poetry?
Click to expand...
Nope- I came accross it in Canada and loved it ever since

kev
 
sammie5

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Kev, that is beautiful, and should help you think of your mother with some joy and some closure. I looked this up on Google, and it was apparently written by an American woman, named Mary Frye, who was born in 1904 in Baltimore. Thanks for posting that. Yesterday was my first birthday without my mother. My dad and I had to help explain to her what a Do Not Resuscitate order was, and ask if she wanted to sign it. It is sometimes very very difficult to do the right thing. It is very generous to make that decision some times, and selfish not to.
 
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kev

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Originally posted by airprincess
Kev,

my mother passed away from cancer about 10 years ago. He heart stopped and the paramedics resusitated her, but she was in a coma. Her bones were hollow because the cancer had eaten them up, she had double phenomonia, and she was brain dead. We left her on machines long enough for the family to say their last goodbyes and then we let her go. I don't regret that for one second.

From someone who has been there, you did the most selfless thing a person can do.

bless you
Click to expand...
I am so sorry for what happened to you and wish beyond wishes that I had the power to turn the clock back for you. M mother is alive, my father is in Toronto and I see them once a flood. I am close to my dad, not so much my mum but would never like to have to go through what you went through.

Can I ask you - did you ever forgive your self or blame your self in any way for what was the best thing that you did? I find it very hard to.

In your words - "bless you" back.

Kev
heart still aches for what he does not have
 
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kev

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Originally posted by Sammie5
Kev, ... I looked this up on Google, and it was apparently written by an American woman, named Mary Frye, who was born in 1904 in Baltimore.

I never knew where it came from - its just the words that are incredible and the way that I would like my familly to remember me.

Thanks for posting that. Yesterday was my first birthday without my mother.

Well many happy returns, albeit belated for yesterday.

The Tuesday evening I said goodbye to my grandmother, I had written some words that I always remembered from a film called "Carve her name with pride" and placed them in her frail hand. She was still clutching it when she slipped away later that evening and was buried with her as my father had requested. The words were from that of a British woman executed in the second world war to her children.
They are poignant.

Kev

The love that I have
Is all that I have
and the love that I have is yours
The love that I have
of the life that I have I have,
is yours and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have
A rest I shalt have
and yet death, death shall be but a pause.
For the peace of my years
in the long green grass
Shall be yours and yours and yours.
Click to expand...
 
airprincess

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Originally posted by kev
I did you ever forgive your self or blame your self in any way for what was the best thing that you did? I find it very hard to.
Click to expand...
I have no regrets about what happened. She wasn't 'living' in the true sense of the word and wouldn't have wanted to be kept alive with a machine doing all the work for her. To have kept her here for purely selfish reasons would have been wrong. We had to let her go. It was her time.

There was never any need for forgivness because I don't feel like what happened was wrong.

I hope that you can find some sort of peace and forgive yourself. What you did was brave, and with your grandmothers best interest at heart. I hope that if I'm ever in the same situation as my mother or your grandmother, someone will be brave enough to do the same for me.
 
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