I have cancer in 2013. I live and enjoy. The year was psychologically hard. Now everything is in order. And a heart attack last year. Help myself)

actually the best way to die is to fall into senile dementia before. yes. for those who are dying, not for their loved ones.

If you have got to think about something- make it the uncertainty of the hour of your death. Gyalse Rinpoche

Well, being with dying relative is a bitter experience. I had. I was trying just to be calm and mildly express the appreciation to what was done to me by them. It's always sad. Also simple physical touch may be very important to dying. Holding a hand, light stroke says more than anything.
About energy and willing to live - it's not somebodies personal choice, it's kind of personality, people are born with it, therefore I would not give any judgement on that. If life exhausted any value for a person, why fight to live longer?

Sick relatives were my childhood routine....My mom is a very kind person so she was taking care of many people. The main thing I learned: no matter how sad it is - it's the way life is, so while you are still alive don't try to punish yourself and be sad all the time too. You are not gonna help anybody if you, yourself push your limits and fall into a depression. You have to take breaks and have some fun outside the house with a sick relative(your job doesn't count!). It's like a marathon and you have to preserve your resources. So I wish you patience and strength.....

I came across and experienced very similar but not the same case. There was micro insult and the memory was almost out in a very short period... Thanks God she could move, serve herself and do some simple things - apart from three weeks one year before the death and then two weeks right before the death. But it was life. She didn't ask more than we could and we did all we could... And we were all together. We remembered better days so we were able to manage. And as was said here we used breaks from time to time...

I lost my Mom a month and a half ago. She was in her 70s, relatively young age. She didn't suffer, just drifted away. She had dementia due to micro stroke - doctors did not know for sure. Just six months ago she was perfectly fine mentally, and then it happened, seemingly within days. She passed within six months. At least she did not suffer that much (although she was uncomfortable) and it is like subconsciously she did not want to be a source of suffering to the family, watching her like this.
Your sister's mother in law - I feel the pain. At least she was mentally capable of making a decision not to prolong the pain to her and her loved ones... Because chances that she wouldn't have gotten better...

Likely it never happened with me yet. But I think we all will have this experience sometime in our lives. It's inevitable

We looked after my great-grandmother and years later my grandmother several months before they died. They both had dimentia and the whole experience was really traumatizing. Even though I loved my granma dearly, pretty much all I could wish during her last days that this whole thing ends as quickly as possible. Towards the end, the doctor told me and my sister: "You know, guys, there are miracles but... Anyway, you grandmother has maybe 10 days left, at most". She died a week after that. And you know, at first I didn't like it, but then I started to appreciate his honesty.

Edited at 2016-04-15 08:09 pm (UTC)

"I truly believe the energy we project in life, is the energy that is returned to us." - them I am doomed.
Sometimes I am a bitch and such an evil, hate that about myself. And it is interesting, because I say stuff, and then realize, what a bitch I am for saying this, but it seems like i can't help myself.

Never had to take care of anyone dying, but had to take care of disabled kid and it was heartbreaking. she is my sister and looking at her and knowing that she will never graduate, or speak, or talk like a human - it is very hard.

My course-mate died 2 week ago due to cancer. He was 40.

This is my main job to do with extremely sometimes terminally ill people. I would felt a lot of compassionate feeling toward them if not their behavior, most of them are very nasty and aggressive toward the care giving staff of the Hospital.
Recently I was hit in my stomach by the foot of the 102 y.o. female patient during the sonogram test I gave her. It was really painful because I never expect such type an action.
The nurse who saw it told me to call the hospital police and sue the patient. (probable because the patient did so or try to do the same many times) But I refused. Not for me to sue the very sick 102th.

I recently came across an Austrian doctor who had invented a diet that has allegedly helped thousands of people to beat cancer. His premise is that cancer cells need protein to grow. His 41-day diet consists only of plant juices that give all the necessary nutrition to the body but starve cancer cells. His name is Rudolf Breuss. You may be interested in mentioning it to your relatives.

As Alexander Pushkin famously said in Eugene Onegin (perhaps the most famous Russian novel in verse, and opera) opening, some 200 years ago:

“Мой дядя самых честных правил,
Когда не в шутку занемог,
Он уважать себя заставил -
И лучше выдумать не мог;
Его пример другим наука,
Но, Боже мой, какая скука
С больным сидеть и день, и ночь,
Не отходя ни шагу прочь!
Какое низкое коварство
Полуживого забавлять,
Ему подушки поправлять,
Печально подносить лекарство,
Вздыхать и думать про себя:
Когда же чёрт возьмёт тебя!”

Nabokov's translation (not the most poetic, but very literal - try to read the original if you can):
My uncle has most honest principles:
when taken ill in earnest,
he has made one respect him
and nothing better could invent.
To others his example is a lesson;
but, good God, what a bore
to sit by a sick man both day and night,
without moving a step away!
What base perfidiousness
the half-alive one to amuse,
adjust for him the pillows,
sadly present the medicine,
sigh - and think inwardly
when will the devil take you?