By LeAnn Thieman

“I'll be here, Daddy,” she whispered. Then, leaning over the side rail, she kissed his cool damp forehead. “When you leave this body and head to heaven, I'll be here.”

He smiled. No words. No movement. Just a faint smile.

She sat down beside his hospital bed and took his hand. “You were always there for me—my first steps, my wedding, my babies. You were there for the most important moments in my life; now I'll be here for you when you pass on.”

Those of us in health care have heard this vow countless times, yet mysteriously, see the promise not come to pass. We need to let go of the expectation that we can be present at the time of death.

One wife sat at her husband's bedside for five days and nights when she learned his death was imminent. Finally, on the sixth day, when there had been no change, a nurse convinced her to go home for a shower and fresh clothes. When the woman walked through her front door, she answered the ringing phone. Her husband had passed away.

Last year my cousin sat at her father's bedside for three days and nights, yet it was while she was in the bathroom of his room that he died.

Some people experienced in the field believe the dying person has some control over when he or she leaves this earth—that they deliberately wait until they are alone, to spare their loved one the sorrow of that moment. Others say it is simply coincidence. One thing my two years of hospice work and thirty years of nursing taught me is that we cannot make plans or promises for that moment of transition. It is completely out of our hands.

Being there at the moment of death is something over which we have no control. The same creator that we believe forms life determines the time of its end. We must believe that. Trust that.

Take comfort in that divine or higher power plan.

We can only say what we must, and do what we can, and turn the rest over to whatever higher power we believe in.