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I've got an uncle whose 95. He sure lived an interesting life. He fought in North Africa and Germany in WWII. He got shot twice and got a purple heart. He was the first scout in one of the WWII battles, the first soldier who marches out and gets shot by the enemy first. But he survived because the Germans surrendered.I didn't know all this when I was young, but he'd played on the same stage as Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley back before he was famous. One of the guitarists who worked with Johnny Cash helped him with some of his picking. My dad said, many years ago, some of those guys would visit him at his house. My uncle was friends with George Jones. But one day, someone who'd drunk in my uncle's club had attacked a police officer and someone advised by uncle to get out of town, right after Bluebird records had wanted to record my uncle. So he shut down his business and went back to Georgia. My dad helped him change careers to be an electrician. My uncle was thankful to God that he got out of the music business, mainly for spiritual reasons. I don't know if he was saved before all that, but I think he was more focused on spiritual things after he left the music scene. He went to a Nazarene church for a long time. The woman he married had a really sharp wit. I spent a lot of time with them back when I was about 4 and 5 and lived in Pennsylvania, and I have memories of them from back then. Then we'd see them at holidays. He was a musician. He and my dad would play guitars when they got together. They could both really pick. They tuned guitars by ear. I remember them spending quite a bit of time on that 'tune up song' when they got together.He was driving up until he was about 91 or 92. I think the story was he hit a car driving out of the DMV and got out of a ticket when he agreed not to drive anymore and the judge let him out of it. His vision was failing. For the past year or two, he's been blind. His wife died at about 88 years of age a year or two ago.A couple of years ago, my uncle, who had no children of his own, started giving money away. His had a step-daughter and I think they gave her quite a bit. He's also given money to nephews and nieces. Some of them would hang around him quite a bit when he was doing that, I heard. He flew me in to see him a couple of years ago. I got to see him and my aunt. She passed when I was in Hawaii, and fortunately, my wife and kids have got to visit with him.My dad and other relatives kept visiting to take him out to eat and open food for him in the kitchen. Since he went blind and his wife died, he didn't really know how to take care of himself. He'd get really loud and upset sometimes in restaurants. Someone who worked at a care home talked my dad into letting him stay there. They suggested relatives not visit until he adjusted. The past week, the woman who worked there called my dad and said he'd refuse to eat. But he didn't realize the extent of it until we went down there and saw how skinny he was. When my dad and I went to visit, right after we saw him for a moment, one of the attendants took him to his room to lie down. She came back afraid he was dying. He'd passed out. They rushed him to the hospital. He hadn't been drinking. He had refused his coffee that morning, which was a first. He was at the hospital on an IV for a little while, but he was a Do Not Recussitate, DNR, they called it, and so they took him off the IV and did not give him a food drip. He seems peaceful in a hospital bed in his house. Of course, he has very little energy right now to even move a little in his bed.My dad and sister and I so far are the ones planning to care for him, and we may get a care worker from nearby in North Georgia (if you know someone else whose good, I may be accepting recommendations). I've never done elder care like this before. I don't think I can go for just not letting him drink. I'll probably be taking those sponge things and putting them to his mouth while he's asleep. I can't even hear what he's saying when his mouth is dry, but he usually refuses drink.In the hospital, he took a bit of a drink from a sponge, and then asked for cold, cold water. I went on for about half an hour asking him to dry different glasses of very cold, iced water to see if they were cold. He'd get frustrated every so often and hit his head with both hands and say he wanted cold cold water, and this water tasted hot. I tried to keep him calm and keep putting water in him. I don't know if the proper thing to do is sleep through the night or just stay up in case he asks for something.Hospice just recommends giving him what he wants and if he doesn't want it, don't give it. The doctor says his kidneys are shutting down. Another relative has power of attorney. If it were me, I'd probably just put him on a food and fluid drip. I understand just respecting his wishes and letting him pass. But I wouldn't want it to be because he didn't eat or drink, either. So I'll probably be a little more aggressive with offering fluids and sneaking them in there when I can. I want to be able to understand what he says. He gets frustrated when i don't, but refuses water to moisten his mouth to speak. I wonder how long he'll live if he refuses all but a few drops of water or juice every day. They say that when very elder folks get to this stage, they don't have any desire for food or drink and it doesn't satisfy them or taste good to them. He's lived a long full life. One good thing I hear about my uncle is that he was very good to his parents. He bought a house for his mother to live in. My dad was born rather late in my parent's life. His father was retired when he was a boy. He lived in that house when he was a child. This reminds me that it says to honor your father and mother that your days may be long upon the earth. My uncle's days have been long, at least compared to how long people live these days. He's also been good to my brothers and sisters and cousins, and very generous. Please pray for my uncle and our family members. I think I've got 31 first cousins living on this side of the family. I know we lost one. There could be some others as well that have passed. Many of them live in Georgia. I don't know if all of them are cut out to be home care givers, but I am hoping that some step forward who want to help watch and care for my uncle and spend some time with him. Also please pray for me. , too

THANK YOU link for taking the time to share your heart and also some of the events of your Uncle's life. As you stated, he has indeed had an amazing life. I read every word of what you shared and was blessed. As you are quickly learning, care-giving has a lot of giving to it and people do it because they care. I noticed that Hospice is now involved. They are now often part of the end-of-life process. However, at a certain point in the end-of-life process, their role is to help keep the patient calm, comfortable, and in as little pain as possible. Hospice is normally not like a hospital where everyone is committed to doing all possible to keep people alive. If a person has been assigned to Hospice, it often means those at the hospital feel that further treatment will not benefit the person.May I recommend that you make a post on ACTS asking for Elder Care-Giving advice. Most likely, some of our viewers have helped provide care for a Loved One who is moving from this life to the life beyond death's door.It is an unwelcome fact, but dying is a natural part of God's plan. It is God who promised, It is appointed unto man once to die. If people did not die, God would not have told the truth, but thus far, what God says does happen to all of us eventually.My advice is for you to become a partner with Hospice as they seek to make your Uncle's passing as comfortable for him as possible. Absolutely, do speak up when you have questions or concerns about the Hospice care your Loved One is receiving. The best way to do that is to ask questions, not make accusations. Ask for an explanation for what they are doing. Since you are the care-giver, you have a right to know.I believe everyone should seek to live as long as possible. Life is a gift from God and we should cherish it always. However, there comes a time when certain medical measures do not lengthen someone's life. There are some procedures that lengthen their death. I am opposed to suicide or assisted suicide, but if someone has reached the point in old age that they are OK with

Thank you both for your encouraging words, and thank you for all the wonderful advice, Doyle. I am supposed to have a turn to stay with him tonight. So it is good to read what you said beforehand. We've had a few other people in the rotation, mostly relatives

AS I get older and meet 'special' folk, such as your uncle, I have learned a lot. To the man on the street, these are just old men (or women). few other than family knows the Doctor, lawyer, pastor, musician etc they once were, they become just another OLD person.I have been there with the care giving my friend, prayers your way Some facts but mostly just my [email protected]/

My sister and a care-giver were taking shifts, and my dad stayed up there about an hour and 15 minutes from where he lives, just about all the time. I hadn't had a shift watching my uncle. I'd taken my wife and girls up there to see him. My son missed the opportunity because the school didn't get a clear message to him not to ride the bus.Tonight I went up there to watch my uncle. My dad was staying there. I'd stay with my uncle and let him sleep. My uncle had been unresponsive since before my last visit with the girls. He was just lying there breathing with his eyes open.I spent some time with him around 11:30 or midnight, singing 'He is Lord', and sharing with him out of I Thessalonians 4 about the rapture and the resurrection. It says, 'Wherefore, comfort one another with these words.' When I mentioned the rapture and the resurrection in the passage, I thought I saw him nod his head a bit, the only reaction I'd seen him make. I told I loved him, that we loved him, and things like that. I swabbed his mouth with water. My dad had told in the other room that if I did that too much, he could choke, and the hospice people warned about that. I swabbed a bit of water in his mouth with that sponge on a stick thing, but he started to sound almost gurgly, not quite, when he breathed.About 3:15 AM, I woke up, and thought I heard him breating. Maybe I did, but it could have been my dad in the other room. He hadn't been sleeping much. But I checked my uncle and he had either stopped breathing right about then or had in the previous three hours. His was cold, about like it had been at midnight, but his body was still kind of warm. I'd checked for a pulse and he wasn't breathing. My dad found a little mirror and checked for a pulse, too. We called hospice and the nurse marked the time of death at 3:30 when she tested for vital signs. Within the next hour or two, the funeral home came and collected his body and folded out the couch and my dad went back to the bedroom and we tried to get a little sleep before morning. Now, my dad has to call at the relatives and decide on a funeral time (I suggested he do it in the opposite order to save on phone calls) and call about insurance and other matters. He has been a really faithful brother to this uncle of mine. He was his power of attorney and handled his affairs. He also visited and spent a lot of time with his wife last year, even though my aunt didn't seem to care much for my dad. On her deathbed, though, she said he was a good man. My dad helped my uncle get set up in a new career and helped train him as an electrician after he shut down his night club that he used to run back before Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, Elvis and all those other people he sang on the same stage with got famous. He'd provided a house for his mom and siblings to live in when my dad was a child, and he'd lend and give money to my dad and all of us cousins. I would say my uncle's death was rather peaceful. I didn't really feel the urge to really pray for the Lord to heal him and raise him up at 95 years old. Maybe I didn't have the faith for that sort of thing. He's been saying he thought he would die soon. My wife had prayed that she and the children would get to see my uncle again. Every one of them got to see him. It is good that we had to move from Hawaii when we did

Especially praying for you and your family Some facts but mostly just my [email protected]/