You may be farther along in the grieving process but it is still shocking if you love them. THe false sense of hope you develop does cause you to encourage them to defy the odds. Twice I did this and twice I was grief-stricken. I know better but it happened anyway.

My husband suffered from ALS/Lou Gehrig's disease. We knew what the end result was going to be. We had just been to the neurologist that day and everything was "normal" for what normal was. Later on in the evening I was taking him from his wheelchair, into the lift, to his bed. We joked about what a great job I did, I didn't crash into anything for once. All of a sudden, he turned gray and his breathing was slowed down. I called an ambulance, they revived him and took him to the hospital. He hung on for two days (he opted not to get a ventilator). He wanted to go home, so I got him home and he passed away four hours after coming home. It was expected, but not expected. It's so hard being here without him. He was only 38 years old. Way too young. It doesn't matter if death is expected or not, it still hurts.

Ive never had someone die expectantly. Ive lost 4 friends to car accidents... one was closer then the rest. I recently lost my pop-pop (grandfather) unexpectedly. .That was extremely hard. I was very upset about it today during work (i was a little embarrassed b/c i was balling my eyes out in front of my client and a case manager) but they helped me through it. I think w/my pop-pop i still have a lot of questions. A lot of unanswered questions. I shouldn't dwell on these things, he's better off now fer sure. Seeing him like that was hard and being the only one who had hope- i went into the hospital and talked to him for like 2 hrs. straight, non-stop. My whole family was laughing at how much i was talking to "no one" . Next day, my hope was destroyed... they had me semi-convinced he needed to be taken off the vent he'll never get better. The worst part... i live 2 hrs. away now and last i saw him was 2 wks. before this happened(went into the hospital July5 - passed away July 12) . Before that, Christmas. I'm not the best at dealing w/ death I never was...I freak at wakes. But this was sooo hard. It hit me like a ton of bricks. Ya know, I knew a little boy w/leukemia who was the smartest, cutest little boy ever, he's my angel. But- even he knew he was going to die. He was stronger than everyone else! And he was sooo happy. It's amazing. SO, between the two- in my opinion, sudden death is way harder for me to deal with. Being someone who cant cope well w/death as it is and then having a love one "disappear" overnight, way harder. No time to prepare. I didnt even know what to say when it was time to say goodbyes. It was so quick.

I think that grief is less shocking when a death is anticipated, but it is NO LESS painful. If your relationship with the dead person has already extinguished a lot of love, then it may be less painful. However, there may be a lot of regret or grief for what can never be mended.

I lost my 89 year old mother to congestive heart failure, my 90 year old father to a stroke, and my husband of 44 years to alzheimers from 1966 to 2005. I cared for my mother in her final months and she died in my home after a two day coma. I cared for my husband, including the final 4 years when he could not find his way home if he went out, and he died at home after 5 days in a coma. I had hospice nurses coming in with both my mother and husband. I think this was easier than having them die in a hospital. I was able to sit with them and tell them things that had been left unsaid. I could also cry quietly and say goodby, or go into another room and bawl my eyes out. There was also the comfort of feeling that I was there for them at the end.

My mother was in a light coma and probably could have been wakened up, but the hospice nurse said that there was no point in prolonging the process. (She had received a pig valve for her heart 10 years earlier and it was breaking down, and she was too frail for another surgery. Her heart had been racing at 120 beats per minute for 3 weeks.) Sometimes she would start to get restless and moan, I mixed a little valium in water, and gave it to her with an eyedropper. Soon she would be sleeping/resting peacefully again. The hospice nurse also gave me morphine to give my husband if he was in pain, but it was never needed.

I had done a lot of grief work regarding my parents years earlier when I was in therapy. There did not seem to be much left after they died. In my husband's case I had also done a lot of emotional work during the many years he was an alcoholic. He had been sober for 14 years when he died. My love had not returned, but we were friends again. I was surprised a year, less 4 days, later, when driving alone on a long trip I started thinking about all the trips we had been on together. Suddenly I burst out crying, pulled over and cried for an hour. Then I thought, this is an anniversary reaction, but he had died 4 days later. Then I realized that this was the day a year earlier that I had really absorbed the idea he would be dead in a few days.

Now, 4 years after his death, I am in a wonderful love relationship with the man I will probably spend the rest of my life with. I am 71, strong and in good health. He is 65 in generally good health, but with a mild heart problem. Sometimes we talk about what it will be like when we are old and dying. We hold each other sometimes and cry over what we know will some day be inevitable. This is called "anticipatory grieving". I learned about it from my 90 year old step-grandmother who was doing that for my grandfather who died a few year later at age 98.

While still in my twenties, I lost a husband due to cancer. I still had a purpose to my life and hope for the future. However, more recently I lost my only son as a result of a motorcycle accident.

The sudden loss of my son is devastating. He was alive Sunday morning and dead by the afternoon. Loosing my son took away my purpose to life.

I have experienced both of these - the sudden death of my husband and youngest son, the long slow death of my father of Alzheimers and other illnesses as well, with the false alarms you spoke of. My mother died last year, timely after years of pain, I know she wanted to go. This did help, but the shock was still there and the loss still huge as I cared for her very closely during the last years. There is, really, no right way. It is completely different for each person, also, I believe, in that no one can actually have the same experience. It is always shocking - a close friend died recently after a lot of pain - I wouldnt have wanted my husband to go through that, but I do, even so, feel that a sudden death leads to more complication of grief afterwards ..... but all is shocking ...

Hi Julie,
I beleive that dealing with a terminal illness you do go thru a grieving stage, but i also think that when your love one passes you actually are shocked and begin the real grieving process...My fiance is living with stage 4 kidney cancer and it has metastisized to his lungs and a rib met....When he had his left kidney removed last Nov. it was into his adrenal gland 2 tumors and 1 lymph node out of the eight they took out and already into his lungs with the rib met...It has been a hard year and it will be one year Aug. 1st, he went thru the grieving stage and so did i...We have gone thru the denial & schock, Anger and rage, the stress and depression, fear of the unknown, i know that the both have come to some acceptance that this is how it is, neither one can change this all tho i fought for months to control this by looking everywhere for a treatment that could save him....I had to come to the conclusion and stop that, i am just his fiance, i don't have the power to change this...That alone took many months to finally realize that God is in control and i am not....We are fighting with hope and faith thru treatment to prolong his life and it's only expected to stabilized the mass and nodules in his lungs.... If and when things do get worse, and he does not make it, i will start another greiving process that will be so much harder than the first, i beleive weather it's a shock or a terminal disease the grieving process is the same and i know whatever happens this will be the hardest thing that i will ever go thru... The part that with someone dies suddenly is harder than our situation he is still with me right now and i have time to let him know how much i love and care for him, and the sudden leaves words unsaid, with quilt, for not having the time to say the words that were meant to be said...Even with terminal cancer Tim leaves the house everyday and anything could happen to an accident to a heart attack, it isn't our plan, he and i are in God hands....What i am saying the shock is worse with the sudden death but the grieving process is the same... Life is a fragle and sad as you said Julie, every minute is precious and cherished cause one never knows the ouitcome...
Thanks for letting me put my comment in, and thank you Julie for writing this...
Enjoy life today, cherish life today, and most of all, love life today as it's so precious....
Beccanne

No, in anyway the grief is not easier when a death is expected. I lost my mom suddenly when I was 6, and even though I was young, I understood that my mom was dead and wasn't coming back. When my dad died 5 years later when I was 11, it came just as hard, possibly worse, even though he was diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy when he was 4 or 5 and I was told when I was 3 years old and every birthday, I would be told more and more about it, that that one might be the last one he'd be with physically, I knew he was going to die from a very young age, the doctors had predicted it right, I knew that he was going to die but the grief didn't get easier, yes, I had told him that I loved him so much, how much I would miss him and talk to him in my prayers at night, that every year I would be throwing a red rose into the ocean we would go to when I was younger. I watched him getting weaker and weaker until he couldn't even move his head and every day I was reminded he was dying but it doesn't make it any easier. It hurts more than anything I've ever went through and I felt for so long I just wanted to die and leave the world with him. I know he wouldn't want me to even think that but it was so hard when my older brother committed suicide because of it. That was a shock but it hurt just as much as my father's did. Nomatter what sort of death it is, it always hits you hard whether you're fully prepared, whether it just comes completely out of the blue, whatever the circumstances it always hits you harder that you can imagine. And yes, you're right, life is fragile, but I refuse to live life to anything less than the full, if the deaths of my family brought me anything good, it would be that they taught me to never doubt that life is harsh but I can pull through it and do what I want to in life. I was depressed for a long time after my father and brother died, but I have overcome in it. I will always love them, miss them and wish they were still with me. That will never change, but hopefully, I can become a stronger person that can deal with what comes at me during life because of this. But perhaps, if my family was back with me, I wouldn't need to be strong. People may disagree with me when I say that expected and surprise deaths are the same, but from my experiences, that's what I've come to learn. Oh, and I was upset when Michael Jackson died, I loved his music and couldn't wait for him making his come-back.

My wife recently died from bowel cancer after two months in palliative care. As you suggest, I do not feel the pain of her death is any less by our having had time to spend together while we were waiting for the inevitable to take place. Memories of those few moments of daily intimacy when I washed her back, she cleaned her teeth and we then said our prayers together, are etched forever in my memory and will instantly bring tears to my eyes when recalled. Comparing notes with a lady whose husband died in an automobile accident yesterday, I could see her reaction was just as sharp and painful as mine as she told me her story, even two years after his passing away.

They both have the baggage of death, but the unexpected takes at least some more time to deal with so its worse, but I have no clue what more to say since I am not much of an expert on this and I didn't deal with my death of my older brother who died in 1980 of cancer. I don't want to sound like I know whats best since I am not good with what to say here.

My Dad died suddenly and I had no time to tell him all the things I didn't even know I wanted to tell him. Now my mother has terminal cancer. I am making SURE she knows how much I love her. Nothing will be left unsaid. By my actions, she will know how much she is loved and appreciated. Death will still be a shock.

I have experienced a suicide so I know what it is like to have the what ifs for awhile. Then I was present for sever days when my grandchildren's great grandfather died of cancer. I saw him sing to my granddaughter that he would be there when she got back. I watched him sing with the Hospice chaplain and pray. The last day it was hard to watch a man lay there waiting for him to die but we did get to say goodbye.
I have been on both sides of the death issue. It wasn't easy either time. Watching someone suffer from cancer was not good but knowing someone felt they couldn't go on can be tough. My mother died all of a sudden also and that wasn't expect but the suicide of the man I loved was the most difficult for me. I have a group I belong to online where everyone has lost a partner to suicide. That has helped. It will be 7 years next month. It isn't as hard as it was the first years but it still is difficult.
Ann

my sons death was shocking he was 15 and he got diagnosed with osteosarcoma in november he passed away in march i got to see him in the hospital even though he wasnt awake and i held him until his last breath very hard and i also had a stillborne a few years back and that was not expected and i can tell you the grief and the pain and the shock is still the same.

my children have turned away from me because they dont know how to handle my grief how do i cope with this and what do i do?

In my 62 years, I have experienced many losses and many griefs. The one that hurt the most - and still does - was that of my father, who died of kidney failure when I was only 15. My parents had sat me down some 3 years before and told me that he had a terminal disease. After that, little or nothing was said about it. No discussion, no allowance for grief or shock. They were very matter-of-fact about it.

On the day of his funeral, my mother glared at me (her moods generally ranged from mild irritation to rage) and said, "Don't you DARE cry during the funeral. Daddy would be so ASHAMED of you if you cried!" So I just sort of went numb. I watched it all go on with a sort of detachment. I didn't allow myself to feel anything. When it was our turn to parade past the open casket, I remember telling myself that the dead thing in the coffin wasn't my father; my father had already moved on to some other plane of existence.

Back at the house, it was my job to circulate, thank people for coming, and make sure that the catering table never ran out of anything. Make sure there was always enough bread, rolls, cold cuts, cheese, salad, etc. I had never even attended a funeral before and was petrified of making a mistake and somehow dishonoring my father's memory, but I kept going like a robot.

At one point, a horrible old lady, who was a friend of my grandmother's, told me "I don't think you loved your father at all. I've been watching you, and you haven't shed a single tear all day!"

I had adored my father. These words felt like a knife wound through the heart. I had been ORDERED not to cry and like a good little soldier, I didn't. And now this awful woman was telling me that I must not have loved my father because I didn't cry.

I didn't say a word. I just moved past the woman, went to my room, and locked the door. For all intents and purposes, I disappeared until the funeral was over. I did not answer if anyone knocked or called to me. I just ignored them all.

To this day, just thinking about the grief that I was not allowed to express that day - and then being excoriated for not expressing grief - makes me furiously angry. This happened nearly half-a-century
ago and I have never been able to forgive any of the parties involved (most of whom are now deceased themselves.)

My father's death was expected; nothing could be done for renal failure in those days. But not being allowed to grieve - and then being criticized for not grieving - still makes my heart ache terribly. I was so angry at those adults for not being able to get their acts together. I mean, adults are supposed to know everything, aren't they??

I agree with this post. While unexpected deaths are more shocking than ones we expect, it doesn't mean they hurt less.

loss is loss no matter how you slice that cake.
my mom died suddenly and my dad died of cancer
over over a period of time. either way the pain
was just as bad. so to both families i felt much
sympathy

I find it strange that certain people in the public eye are regarded as, 'Icons.'

Diana, Princess of Wales, was one - and the outpouring of public grief was astonishing when she died.

Now, I have to qualify this by saying that I actually met the lady, in 1994.

She was Patron of the Red Cross and came to visit the home run by that charity in my home town.

It was a circus!

She was surrounded by security men and the towwn centre was closed off......

I'd actually forgotten that she was visiting that day and sort of stumbled into the brouhaha by accident of being in the town centre, shopping.

I had my younger son in his buggy and sort of got corralled into the security zone around the home she was visiting.

The Princess, while doing the rounds of her adoring public, made a beeline for me, because she'd spotted my son...... He was only four months old.

She shook my hand and then squatted down to chuck my son under the chin......

When she was killed in the accident, three years later, I was shocked - and, yes, I watched her funeral service on TV and cried.

I didn't subscribe to the hysterical outpouring of public grief. I didn't cry until I saw her sons join the funeral procession......

You know what touched me the most.....?

It wasn't the pomp and circumstance of the service, or that NAUSEATING reworking of, 'Goodbye Norma Jean,' by Sir Elton John - but the tiny human touches.

As the funeral cortege passed along one certain part of the route, Prince William faltered and his uncle, Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, stepped back, put his arm around the boy's shoulders and spoke into his ear......

That showed me that, no matter how much status as an, 'Icon,' the late Princess had gained, at base she'd been a mother, whose children were grieving.

I couldn't STAND Michael Jackson's music and I thought he was a total weirdo, nowhere NEAR the Princess's league, BUT, he had children......

They are the ones we should be feeling for, and we should be praying that they get APPROPRIATE guidance, rather than the sychophantic, 'encouragement,' their father got, which only encouraged him to keep performing even when his body was being tortured and becoming dependant on drugs......

Death is and always will be shocking. I lost my wife almost 2 months ago & she and I saw it coming for a solid year. She was diagnosed with guillain-barre syndrome 13 months previous to her passing and this was the beginning of the end. She had COPD, smoked like a chimney, was obese, & had countless other health & mental issues.
In the end, she was trying to be weened off of steroids because she was supposed to have spinal surgery done for disc problems when she passed on Mother Day night, due to a accidental overdose of pain meds.
Even though this is not how i wanted her to go, it wasn't unexpected because of all her different issues.

I really don't think so, in answer to this question. Death is death, weather expected or not it's always a hard thing to deal with, it's so final, and always painful. Farraha's death was expected, but I do not believe it was any less painful for the people who loved her....God Bless everyone & those in this world who are greiving for someone or something.......deet