Goodbye to a friend

After a pretty rough few weeks in the hospital and nursing home, they called hospice care on my wife’s 90-year old grandpa and sent him home yesterday. They expect he has a couple more days. We’ve been going to see him at least once a week over the last month and he had been declining rapidly – strokes, seizures, then pneumonia. We spent yesterday evening with him and got to say our goodbyes. I’m fortunate to have been able to tell him how much we love him, that we will make sure grandma is taken care of, and what a great man he was. My last words to him before we left was to tell him that he’s in God’s hands now, so everything is going to be alright.  
 
Even for someone who has lived a good, long life, and who is passing rather peacefully, it still is really difficult to say goodbye.

To have such a man in you life is special beyond words Dave.

To be such a man for him is equally special.

Janet - thank you. Having the chance to say goodbye was great - I know so many here on the forum have lost loved ones where they didn't get that chance.

Bapu that is a very nice thing to say - thank you.

Storm - he also got the chance to say some things to us, which we could tell was important to him. Unfortunately we couldn't understand him - he was too weak to really get the words out; but he held our hands and looked us in the eyes and talked for several minutes. We didn't need to hear the words, we could feel what he was saying.

Sorry to hear about this Dave. You were there for him plus reassurance and that's what counts.

Dave, I'm sad and happy for you.

Sad that you are faced with losing someone dear to you.

Happy that you have the kind of relatives that you love and had the chance to share life with them.

Thank you all so much. I do feel very blessed to have known him - I never got to have a relationship with any of my grandparents; so in the last 15 years I've known him, he's become my grandpa. By the time I met George, he was already 80 years old. He has a speech impairment because he was born with a cleft pallatte that was never fixed, so he was hard to understand, even at his best. So he didn't just jump into group conversations - you had to make an effort to have a conversation with him. With the large family, it would be easy to just overlook George. But once you made the effort to talk to him and get to know him, he was an amazing man who lived a very interesting life and I learned tons from him. 

From knowing him, I came to understand that being elderly is not a weakness, it's a proud accomplishment and something to be admired.

my regards, Dave.  Bless you and your wife and family.

Sorry to hear about it Dave.  My thoughts are with your family.

Sorry Dave.  AT least he passed peacefully.

-10 sorry to hear

It's harder when you don't get that chance.

I agree. in a way you are lucky. I lost my grandpa last week and I was 2000km away. Last time I saw him he looked very good and strong so I could never imagine that his time had come. I 'm still thinking everyday about the fact that i never got the chance to say goodbye!