Ever been in the room when someone died?

[PlutonianEmpire]

I remember when I was very young my grandfather (my dad's dad) had passed away from an gastric or intestinal disease, but I was too young to remember details, but I know I wasn't in the room when it happened. The only memory I do have from it is playing in a backyard playground, and suddenly seeing my dad burst into tears and hug my mom, at which point I burst into tears too because of that.

Two years ago, my grandmother (my dad's mom) passed away too, this time from cancer. I remember she lied in her death bed in an unconscious state for about a week. She passed away overnight, so I was not in the room when she passed.

So far, I have never in my life been in the room when someone passed away, human or not.

 

[Naval Power]

I was sitting downstairs with my dad, who had cancer, watching Lost and I said something regarding the show and didn't get an answer and then I heard a really strange hissing sound which I guess was his final breaths leaving him and saw his hand which was near his face sliding down. I'll never forget that, always going to haunt me, day before my birthday too. Lifee goes on I suppose, but I don't wish that upon anyone, didn't even get a chance to say goodbye.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

When I was in 10th grade by (adopted) double cousin Josh died. (He was a year older than me, but since his family moved around so much he had fallen a year behind me in school.) He had been hit by a car while walking home from school. After a couple days in the hospital he seemed to be getting better, but then he convulsed and was not restrained well enough to keep him from falling out of bed and landing on the part of his head that had been most injured in the initial accident. He quickly took a turn for the worse. I was in the room when he mumbled his last words ("I want to go home," which in my overwhelming evangelical family was taken to mean that he was ready to go to heaven), at the moment that his eyes stopped responding to any stimuli, and when the doctor declared him brain dead. I was not still there by the time he was taken off of life support and allowed his body to die.


Four years later I was also in the room when my paternal grandfather died. He was 91 years old and had been sick for some time. (Years earlier he had claimed that he intended to live to 100 in order to beat his father's record of 99 years, but the day before his death he claimed that he would rather die than continue to feel such pain.) My dad claims that pneumonia killed him, but I recall clearly that the doctor described the cause of death being a rapid drop in blood pressure caused by the antibiotics breaking up microbial growths which would probably have otherwise caused a slower and more painful death.