Music Inspired By The Passing Of A Loved One

One morning I awoke from a dream, crying. I dreamt that I was visiting my family and it was time for me to leave. In the dream my father was younger and healthy. When I turned to him to say goodbye, I started crying uncontrollably because I knew that I would never see him again. He said to me, “You know that I love you.”

Later that day when I spoke to my mother, I didn’t tell her about the dream, but my father had told her that morning that he would be dying the following day. For the previous two years he had been bedridden by a stroke and didn’t want to live like that anymore. He had always been a very physically active person.

The next day my father tried to die but, unbelievably, a hospice nurse resuscitated him. He suffered another stroke which left him unable to swallow and forced him to use a feeding tube. He asked to die. His only option was to be taken off food and water — to starve to death — and to be given morphine to ease the pain.

I wish I could say that he didn’t suffer, but he did. On one occasion when he couldn’t breathe, he gripped my hand like there was no tomorrow, with the same strength of his former, vital self. He weighed 80 pounds.

Finally, after nine long, excruciating days, he died a few hours after he was brought home, to die at home in peace, as he wished.

In this music I imagined what my father might be experiencing in his final moments — questioning and coming to terms with the moment, searching for reassurance, acceptance, and finally letting go, his suffering over.

Listen to Final Moments:

Music by Marlene Veltre Copyright 2016 All Rights Reserved

iTunes Visualizer