How do you prepare yourself for your parents death?

How do you do it?
Seriously, how does one prepare themselves for it when you know it's coming?

I am not ready to lose my parents, but I know it's coming and I'm not ready to lose them quite yet.

I wonder to myself if I am being selfish because I want them here for a little bit longer while at the same time I see both my parents dying before my eyes and I pray to God every day to give me more time with them, yet I don't want them to suffer either.

I came from a family with two loving parents and I treasure them dearly but I see them aging so fast, it breaks my heart.

My mom and dad have a beautiful love story but a sad one too (that is their legacy to tell, not mine) but I hope to honor it one day by telling it from their prospective.
My parents are the two most important people in my life.

I am a middle child to an older brother and younger sister. My brother is disabled and my sister is a happily married woman. I am a divorced single mother to 4 (my kids are my parents only grandkids and they cherish them like my grandparents did us).

I treasure my mom and my dad mostly because they taught me how to love and how to be strong in this world.
They have always given me guidance and faith.
They never turned their back on me, even through all the mistakes I have made in my life. They have always been there for me my entire life yet now I see my father dying, and my poor mother fell the other day and had two cracked ribs when I picked her up at the ER. They used to take care of each other and now we are taking care of them.
My father is shrinking down to nothing, he is not eating much any more. He has no appetite because he cannot eat. His kidneys are failing him and he is losing his memory too. He suffers from stroke damage.
My poor mother is falling apart, physically while my dad is losing use of his internal organs.
My mother is losing her physical ability. In the last 3 years she has had a total knee replacement, shoulder surgery, eye surgery and 5 falls. Now she has 2 cracked ribs.

I have worked with the elderly for a long time now and I have witnessed death, but it is a much different story when it's your own.

I've been taking care of them along with my sister but it is hard to see when you know it's happening to your own parents.

It's a different story when it is your own family.

Oh Lord I need strength to see me through this. Our family has been through it all but I do not know what it is like to lose a parent.

I have many friends who have suffered the loss and a few friends who have lost both. I do not know how to bare it.

It's been a struggle for me because especially with my dad, he knows he is dying and my mother knows it too. She is trying to be strong for him, but suffering at the same time.

How do I prepare myself for this loss when I know it's coming.
My brother thinks they are going to live forever and my sister is in denial, but she also told me she is prepared for it, because she knows they are aging and her husband lost his parents and brother too. Yet she has never seen it happen like I have. I work in health care, she works in retail.

I do not think it will be an easy loss for her as she thinks it will be.

I have learned how to handle death from my work, but it's so much harder when you see it happening with your own parents.

VodkaBec · 31-35, F

Yes I don’t think we can appreciate how others feel until it happens to us. And I don’t think you’re being selfish, it’s to be expected to wonder how that void is going to be filled. The closer we are to those we love, on doubt the bigger the void.

Other than making them as comfortable as they can be, I think it’s incredibly important to give them positive emotional support. Generally speaking I think a parents biggest legacy is there kids. No doubt it would mean a lot to them knowing first and foremost that they are happy. I know my parents used to worry constantly if they thought me or my sister weren’t happy, and more so after we left home.

I remember my mum saying there would be nothing worse than taking burdens to the grave. So if there’s any of those you can relieve them of, I think that would help you and them enormously.

For what it’s worth a good friend of ours lost both his parents due to illness before he turned sixteen, he was left on his own to survive. He told us that the worse thing was there was so much that needed to be said and it didn’t happen, no closure. It made him feel very guilty and angry for many years.

No doubt our relationship with our parents would play a huge role in the situation. I think if one genuinely love’s their parents and comfortable with the discussion they make regarding these situations, it will work out as well as can expected. Anyway that’s as much as I can offer, I hope it makes some sense to you.