Originally Posted by Starman

I remember working in a hospital with a terminally ill patient who only had a day or so to live, and I would go into his room to see how he was doing, and he would crack jokes, we would laugh together, and I believe that he had accepted his death and had accepted that he only had a day or so to live.

His relatives came to visit, and I left the room to give him some privacy with his loved ones. They crowded around his bed, they were all very sad, and some of them cried out loud. After they left I went back into the patients room and asked him “how are you doing; to which he replied, I was doing great until I saw my relatives.

He had accepted his death but they had not. At least in a terminal illness people have a chance to say goodbye, if they want to. Unlike other, more immediate, methods of dying. People react differently to a loved one who is murdered than they do to a loved one who commits suicide, or a loved one who dies in an accident. However, death does the same thing to our body no matter how we die, it kills our body.

The thing about watching a terminally ill patient die is that you can feel, and maybe even see, their presence leave the body at the time of death. 24-hours or so before a terminally ill person dies there is a lot of sublime activity around their body. Even if they are in a coma there is a lot of activity in their eyes, a lot of energy surrounding them. Lots of nurses and doctors, as well as loved ones, have noticed this and it is a topic of discussion among some who work in the medical field or at a hospice. Sort of like a ground crew that has come to help that person with their lift-off.