How to reach out to a dying man?

[Nucking Futs]

I'm on the board of directors of a club that has existed since the 50's.A founding member of the organization and daily user has received news that inoperable cancer will kill him within weeks. Fuck cancer :thumbdown What's an appropriate way to reach out to him? Or wait until he's passed and console the family?

This man is well known to membership and is seen daily by members.

 

[Mike95060]

Ask him what he wants to do and make it happen. If he wants to go out with a bang and you can facilitate, do it.

 

[Cycle61]

Hookers and blow.

 

[Blankpage]

you must be super close or are you doing something for you or for him?
With weeks to live he probably wants to spend as much of that time with a single individual.

 

[littlebeast]

Ask him what he wants to do and make it happen. If he wants to go out with a bang and you can facilitate, do it.

this. i worked with a woman who was diagnosed with terminal cancer. i reached out to her, and told her i was there for her, what ever she needed. she told me she almost felt invisible. she thought it was because so many people don't know what to say, so they don't say anything. i didn't know what to say either. i mostly listened and followed her lead.

 

[billswim]

A cancer diagnosis is awkward. People treat you with kid gloves. Fuck that. If he's a founding member and a strong individual, approach him from that perspective. No bullshit. He probably didn't have time for that when he was healthy.

Good on you for trying to make things a little better!

 

[bikeama]

My uncle knew he was going to die for about 9 months. He changed my out look on death. Did not have much, he was a carnival mechanic. But gave everything he did had to the people he wanted to have it before he died. One thing he told me I will never forget. Someone who is dying knows they are dying you don't have to pretend they are not. He also told me it you really like or loved that person be sure to tell them how much they mean to you.

Several years later I went to visit a old friend who was dying. As I was getting ready to leave I told Emil how much I enjoyed knowing him in my life. Next thing I have an 85 year old man crying in front of me. I cursed my uncle as I left. At the funeral his widow told me home much Emil appreciated how much he meant to me.

 

[bruceflinch]

Why wait till he's passed to say good by? Funerals are for the survivors.

Contact him, call him on the phone, push him around in his wheelchair at least once. Nobody, ok maybe few people, want to spend their last days staring at a wall with only one person to talk to, waiting to die.

Even if you only see him once before he passes, it will mean a lot to him.

Thank you for caring enough to get some opinions.

 

[Nucking Futs]

Thanks everybody. Super awkward situation for me and the rest of the board, and all these opinions help me find the courage to say thanks to him.

 

[Climber]

A cancer diagnosis is awkward. People treat you with kid gloves. Fuck that. If he's a founding member and a strong individual, approach him from that perspective. No bullshit. He probably didn't have time for that when he was healthy.

Good on you for trying to make things a little better!

This.

He's been around for a long time, he knows he only has a few weeks of life and people skirting around the subject only make things worse for him and isolate him more at a time when he probably needs people to just talk him and be there for him.

 

[m_asim]

OP, in addition to what people have already said, don't f'ing waste anything time deciding what to do. Even an awkward attempt now is better than none because the person died sooner rather than when you expected. Trust me on this. HAVE THE TALK NOW.

 

[injun]

In years past when I would go to Bonneville I would make sure and hang out with Walter the head of security cool old guy and Linda one of the workers, well she takes me aside and tells me I am the only one that makes the time to talk to him and she gives me his e-mail address, we talk online many times and then he stops, I learn of his passing the next year from linda, she said he was so happy about our visits.
Brings a tear to my eye.

Injun

 

[tzrider]

Thanks everybody. Super awkward situation for me and the rest of the board, and all these opinions help me find the courage to say thanks to him.

I think one of the worst things that can happen to the dying is for everyone to disappear on them because it's awkward. It's hard for sure, but you'll never regret having found the strength.

 

[ScorpioVI]

Reach out now. When my sister was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer I figured we'd know when the end was near and we can have that "talk". I never got the chance, I was riding down in Baja (literally in the middle of nowhere) when I got the call that she was going downhill fast. By the time I got back she was slipping in and out of lucidity, and all I got from her was a smile.