Dealing with a family member who is dying

My friend's younger brother (he is 63) has malignant mesothelioma, which is a type of cancer that has affected the tissue lining his lung. I asked my friend how his brother is doing. He said he puts on a brave face, but when he is tired, he looks like a dying man. My friend continued I don't know how long he has, the doctors think that he could have a week, a month or two or three months, but it is not good. We talked about how hard it must be on my friend and his sisters and his brothers family.

My friend agreed and he told me his brother was talking about ending his life, with assisted suicide but that his brother had not done anything concrete or taken any other action except to talk about it at this point. I could see that the discussion of his brother was not one my friend wanted to continue, so we changed the topic, and discussed the home renovations we both had to complete.

I started thinking, how do we talk about death and dying. My friends' brother had, according to my friend, made peace with the fact he was dying as my friend and his family have made peace with the pending loss of their brother. Losing a family member is not easy, but when a family member is dying the strain on the rest of the family is tremendous, and there is not much help.

My friend told me that his sisters, as part of their volunteerism, go to the hospice in their hometown and provide vigils and sit with the patients who are dying. I thought this was wonderful as it helps those who are dying to know they are not alone but came back to the question, who helps the family dealing with this loss.

Once a person dies, there are supports in place to help the family, but I wonder if there are supports in place to help family members as the person is dying. I also realized that if a family is dealing with this issue, they may not have the energy to find out more information or to seek help. So I thought I would list some ideas here. There are many supports available:

Ireland has information at http://hospicefoundation.ie/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Supporting-Families.pdf where there are links to further supports.

Palliative Care Australia has information at http://palliativecare.org.au/resources/how-can-i-support-my-friendfamily-member 

In England, the National Health Authority has done some interesting research into this issue at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4436280/

In Canada, the Virtual Hospice has information on dealing with death and dying including an article on  how to talk to a dying person

 http://www.virtualhospice.ca/en_US/Main+Site+Navigation/Home/Topics/Topics/Communication/Tips+for+Talking+with+Someone+Who+is+Dying.aspx 

https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/programs/ei/ei-list/reports/compassionate-difficult-times.html

Other organization also have information for families who are dealing with a person who is dying. Here are some: 

https://oceansidehospice.com/coping-tasks-for-the-family/

https://www.dyingmatters.org/

http://www.ohtn.on.ca/rapid-response-impact-of-medical-assistance-in-dying-on-family-and-friends/