By Sandrea:- MYGRIPE
Each day the great majority of us go about our daily lives without really caring about what tomorrow brings. We take our own mortality for granted and believe that we are going to live to a ripe old age as this is the natural progression for human lives. But the how do you survive living with a partner that has a life threatening disease, for example HIV,cancer, diabetes or any of the number of diseases that are taking the lives of our love ones.
I am passionate about this because I lost my father a few years ago to diabetes. How my mother coped with him first having part of his leg amputated, losing his eye sight. Considering that my father was one of the most proud person that one could come across, and to see him reduced back to a childlike individual must have been very strenuous on my mother and yet she did not show any signs of weakness during the years that she cared for him until his death.
Having not been around my father for those years I could not comprehend the strain and the stress that she must have undergone, and although I was in daily contact with my mother as to how his health was progressing I could not appreciated that his illness had drained her severely. The last time I say my father before his demise, I saw a strong person one who could do everything and usually does. When I decided to go back to Jamaica to visit, he die two weeks before I leave the UK. Now I cannot see my father the way that he was described to me, all I can remember is the vibrant man I had seen in 1988.
The reason I mentioned this episode of my family life is so that the reader can understand why I am asking the question as to how do you cope watching your love ones die, slowly but surely. I cast my mind back to a friend of mine whose 21 year old daughter was diagnose with cancer, I could not for the life of me understand why Joan looked so drained and withdrawn each time she visit her daughter. Sadly, her daughter passed away quietly one night and Joan was devastated that she was not with her the moment that her life expired.
I would welcome any comments from people who are living with someone whose life is slowing slipping away. How do you find the strength to go on day after day in the knowledge that you are going to lose this person that you loved.
They say that God do not give us more burden than we can bear, but that I believe is blind faith and if your faith is that strong then you can see good in any adversary that comes across your part. So if you are looking after anyone who is terminally ill my respect and love goes out to you for the remarkable job that you are doing, because I am not sure that I would have the strength to do so.
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