Talking to a dying person

I have talked about this before, the five regrets of the dying but I thought I would talk about it again. My favourite cousin had a brain aneurysm and she is not as fortunate as my wife, who fully recovered from her aneurysm. My cousin is not recovering and her daughter told me today that the family and my cousin had made the decision to pull her off life support within the next four days. 

We talked about how hard a decision that was for the family, and I said: "I thought they had made the correct decision, as I knew my cousin and how she would not want to be a burden on others or lose her freedom". We talked some more about her condition and how hard it was on her family to see her in steep decline.

Her daughter told me that my cousin had perked up when she had heard I had called so she asked me if I would speak to my cousin before they pulled her off life support.  I will do that in the next day or so.

I love my cousin and I will be sad to lose her but knowing that she wants it this way, makes it easier. However, a loss is never easy and her loss will have a profound effect on her husband, her daughter, her sons, her grandchildren, her cousins, and her aunt and me.

I was thinking about what to say to my cousin and I remembered the article about the top five regrets of the dying which are and I wondered if she had any of them. The regrets are:

• I wish I had  the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me
• I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
• I wish I had the courage to express my feelings
• I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends
• I wish I had let myself be happier

My cousin at this point does not recall her children's names and so she will be, I think, unaware that we had a conversation once I hang up. I remember when my wife was recovering from her aneurysm she lived in the moment, and it was, for my wife important that she be connected with people. I suspect that my cousin will be the same, and when we talk it will be important to her and so I will be upbeat and positive. But when I hang up the memory of the conversation will be lost to my cousin, but will stay with me. My problem is that I really don't know what to say to a person who has made the decision to let life go, it will be a hard conversation for me, but hopefully not for her.