Where would you die?

[Gideon's War]

A few weeks ago my grandmother passed away. She lived to a ripe 92 and was pretty active until the end when she basically stopped eating and started having some internal organs failing. She went quickly. What was interesting was wheile there at the hospital and walking around, there were alot of people who weren't going to make it. What my question to you is if you knew this was the end, would you go to the hospital or just die at home?

I totally understand now the old farmer mentality of not wanting to leave home (this was also seen on the PBS show "A year in the life of a homesteader"). What are your thoughts?

[sisterpine]

My feelings on this vary as to still having a spouse at the time of my death. If I live alone I would probably have hospice come care for me till the end. However if I am married or partnered I would not want that memory in the house where my loved one will still live when i am gone so I would have hospice till the end was near and then the hospital or nursing facility or residential hospice.

[Sassafrassa]

I want to die at home. Hospice care if needed. In-facility Hospice care if my disease is such that home care cannot be provided. I have a living will. I do not want extreme means at the end of my time here. I don't want to live past my time.

I know that the death of a loved one is traumatic, and I don't want to make the place I shared my life with my partner uncomfortable for him; but at the same time, I want to die where I am comfortable and have lived my life. My home is just that, my home and my heart.

Best of circumstances, I'll go in my sleep or out in the garden. A friend of mine's aunt died at the kitchen table after baking a pan of biscuits. My uncle died falling out of an apple tree at age 92!! What a great way to go...doing what you love.

BTW...make sure you tell those you love what you want in your end of life care. If you haven't had that conversation...be sure you do. I know it's uncomfortable, but it's important for both you and them.

Sassa

[ScorpionFlower]

I would want to be at home, sitting outside.

My grandma held on at the hospital until we brought her home. She held on until all her children (one was in Portugal) and grandchildren where there and said goodbye. She held on until we all went to sleep. Then she passed with my mom holding her hand and me holding my mom. And my mom and I had nearly the same dream. Of my grandfather coming to my grandmother riding on a white horse. I woke up first just as the nurse was checking my grandma's pulse and she told me my grandma had just passed moments before I woke up. My mom woke up minutes later and first thing she said was that my grandpa came and took grandma with him. I told her that yes, he did. We came to find out that a number of my cousins and my uncle also had similar dreams that night of grandpa taking grandma with him. All the family that slept in the house that night and a couple cousins who stayed the night at their other grandma's house that was a few houses away had the dreams. We didn't know all of this until the Hospice counselor told us. Her job was to talk to all of us and help us with the grieving process. She kept hearing from all of us versions of nearly the same dream. She called us all together and told us all.

[Paula]

Sisterpine, my first dh died at home and it doesn't make us (me and ds 16, or our extended family) feel strange at all. We know we made him as comfortable as possible in the environment he wanted to be in.
As a matter of fact he died exactly where I'm sitting now.
I did wonder if it would be weird. I think it's just our culture, death is hidden away in hospitals so people don't know how to deal with it anymore.
To answer the original question, I hope I am able to die at home.

[Michael W. Smith]

When my wife & I got married, we lived in an apartment over her parent's garage. Lived there like that for several years until one day her 90+ year old aunt (who lived alone) asked my wife's mother "Do you think they would trade with me?"

I think she knew she was getting older and having a harder time getting around (she had taken several tumbles down the steps of her 2 story house). We traded and she lived there about a year. One morning my wife's parents went over to check on her and found her dead. She was kneeling beside the bed almost like in a praying position.

I've often thought she knew how to die - in a place SHE wanted to be and possibly knowing that it was her time to go, so she said her final prayer.

We still live in her farm house (which is ours now), and I tell my wife & son that there is no nursing home for me. They will either have to drag me out of the house kicking and screaming or else in a body bag!

[backwoods]

Always at home and among those who know and appreciate you the most.We are also preparing a family cemetary on our homestead.Easier to visit that way.And you never really leave.Of course I am prepared to die where God tells me to.

Backwoods 1

[MaineFarmMom]

I will die at home. If my family needs help to care for me I will gladly have Hospice come. I hope to die quickly, without trauma and without a big deal for my family to deal with.

People died in the house I grew up in and both of the houses that we own now. It fine. Death is as much a part of life as living. It's completely natural.

My mother died in the home she loved. My father will die wherever he wants, which won't be a nursing home or hospital. Sassa, I like your idea. I wouldn't mind if I died in the garden. My husband says he'll sprinkle some of my ashes in the garden so that I always will be where I always am now.

[big rockpile]

I would say Home.

My Sister Died in the Hospital,they gave her enough Drugs she wasn't in any pain.She was cool with that.

My Mom Died in her Flower Garden and I'm sure she was cool with that.

big rockpile

[Tabitha]

with my gumboots on, and hoping it rains.

my grandmother died when she was 94, still lucid and healthy, but small and frail and precious. One day she said her time was up and she was going to die. I wish I had asked her how she knew, but her nine kids and their mates were crowding around. she told us to go home, she was ready and did not need us. she died the next day, with her apron on, sitting on the kitchensofa. Her youngest son had an urge to go to her house and he sat next to her,he put his arm around her and she leaned against him and seemed to look into his face,(she was quite blind by then) stroked his cheek and then sort of faded and was gone.
I had a feeling like she left and never looked back.

[Jan Doling]

Definitely home, but maybe not inside the house. Having Native American ancestors. I think I would like to go off into the woods and wait, although I keep remembering that scene in Little Big Man in which the old Indian returns to his teepee instead because it started to rain!

[kars1995]

I hope to die at home...here on the ranch in Texas. But I know that I'll be buried in DeGraff, OH right beside my grandparents. (The family has plots.) My grandmother was my very best friend in the world. Now she is God's angel. Everyday I'm living on this ranch I try to do the best I can from what I learned from being with her on their farm. I know she is watching me and I want to make her proud. :-)

[Dixielee]

Home please! Better yet in the garden after I have eaten a wonderful home grown tomato. As an ER nurse, I have seen too many people die in the impersonal hospital, and rarely is it pretty. I do not want life support or extended care. When I can no longer care for myself and do the things I love, please Lord, take me home.

[WildernesFamily]

At home. I'd like to die in my sleep.. just go to sleep and never wake up.

I still have a lot of living left to do though!

Well considering I want to be shot by my boyfriends jealous girlfriend on my 105th birthday, I'd better die at home!!

My Grandma died June 12th. She was out trimming her hedges on June 7th and she must have felt a stroke coming on as she sat down in her chair. She still had the clippers in her handa few hours later when the newspaper delivery folks found her. She couldn't move her right side or use her toungue. She hung on long enough for my Uncle to make it in from CA. We had to move her to a nursing home (D)(*&$# Medicade), even though we knew that was against her every wish. We had to move her at 3 PM and she died at 11:40. So we can say that she never LIVED there. She just had an extended visit.

Either way, her spirit and what made her tick was gone in that lawn chair while she held her hedge clippers.

[Jerngen]

Oh lord, won't you take me..........
While I'm working, on the homestead.......

There could be a song there somewhere!

[Mylash]

As I avoid hospitals generally, and would never venture near one for any disease know to God, I rather think I would die at home, in my own bed, perhaps. Unless of course, I were unfortunate enough to have some accident that precipitated the need for surgical help to mend. Then I would venture to a hospital, get the infamous hospital virus, and die, cursing doctors..

[culpeper]

I'd rather die in a hospital. That way, nobody I love will arrive home to find my corpse and have to deal with it. Hospitals are geared to dealing with dead bodies as well as to heal the sick, so that's the best place to be when you die, I reckon. Everything's all very business-like and efficient, while at the same time compassionate, and for the families there are no 'can't sleep in that bed because Granny died in it' problems afterwards.

[kitaye]

At home or in the moutains sitting on a peak and watching the world go by.

[Deb862]

I definitely wish to die at home and definitely outside, preferably in the woods on our (future) property. I have already made my wishes well known and my husband is okay with that. Told him if I can't walk out there of my own volition he is to carry me or wheel me out there. We are also working out the logistics of making a burial ground on whatever piece of land we purchase. If I'm lucky, some day I will be a tree