My grandpa had a stroke this monday. It left him in a non drug enduced coma. All of my family members were in and out of the hospital for the past few days. It was very unexpected, we all thought he was very healthy. The options werent too good for him or for us. The second day his brain scan was worse. Basically waht it came down to was that he had lost the oxygen to his brain, he had damage to his brain stem and he wasnt breathing on his own very well, if at all. The family had to make a decision wether to continue aggresive medical techniques to keep him alive or to let nature take its course. My grandpa was a stuborn one and definately would of never wanted to be hooked up to any machines, let alone make it through just to sit around as avegestable for the rest of his depressing days. His children and wife decided to let nature have its way. Its been very hard to deal with, I was very close to him and he was a very good grandfather to all of his grandchildren. We all gathered in the room, put on a very intense emotional irish song, let it play and toasted his life with irish whiskey. Then again one by one said our last goodbyes. It was extremely emotional. Most of the family left to wait in the waiting room. For some reason I stayed in the hall looking at my grandpa who was facing me, eyes closed. There were a few still in the room who wanted to stay for the whole thing. It was horrible when they took out the breathing tubes. He was struggling and gasping for air, the rest of his body limp. He had his favorite song playing in the back ground, a very emotional opera kind of song that accompanied his death. It started to snow on a day that seemed impossible for snow. I left briefly and missed his actual passing but for some reason something pulled me back into the hall to face his pale, lifeless body. A rainbow appeared just outside his window, and everyone who came out of the room kept saying how peaceful it was. I stared at his body from out in the hall, him facing me, for 5 minutes. After a while for some reason I went into the room and held his hand for a brief second. I lingured in there staring at him and finally broke down severely, the hardest breakdown i had for the whole time he was at the hospital. It was very difficult and still is unbeleivable that it has happended. It was just so unexpected. A month and a half ago I had an uncle pass on the other side of the family and about 3 months ago my great grandmother passed at age 98. I also lost my father 2 days before I had my 14th birthday. We had to make the same decision to let nature take its course, like my grandpa. Anyways, I just descovered this site and have used other forums on here when I ran across this one and figured I would do my grandfather justice and share his story. If you want to comment feel free. Thank you.