Originally Posted by haennie

Hi Littlesister,

You are a wonderful person trying to help him through this. I had a friend who died of cancer last year, and I was the main person he reached out to in his last couple months; I also spent the last few days with him in the hospital. Other story: one of my friends is a mental health professional and one of his main specialties is providing therapy to terminally ill patients. He's doing an amazing job with it.

Is he mentally intact?
One of the approaches this therapist friend of mine taught me was that sometimes what works best is not to focus on them excessively, but talk to them about our own life, thoughts, feelings, etc. Make it an interactive and mutual exchange rather than one-way, so that they can relate to our stories and we can jump all over the map of birth and death and everything in between, together, in an intimate way. So they don't feel alone in the experience that much. Don't be excessive and overwhelming with conversations, though. When my friend was dying, I also spent a lot of time just being there in silence with him. You can be quietly affectionate.

Kudos to you for being there for him.