If none of us believes it then it won't be true. Later, she kept telling us her doctor said that smoking did not cause lung cancer and insisted that she was doing better when, in reality, the opposite was true. We went along with her, but as a result everyone ended up being isolated. You can't talk about something that everyone is ignoring without making everyone angry. As a result, I never had the significant conversations that I wish I could have had with her.
Anger is another problem that arises both before and after death.
Sometimes I was angry at my mom for smoking, or for her not going to the doctor sooner, or at the first doctor who hadn't caught the cancer. I was also angry at the expectations that family put on me that made me feel like I had to be the strong one. And to top it off, I was angry at myself for not handling it all better somehow. In addition to denial and anger, guilt is often part of crisis situations. I felt guilty for trying to put mom's illness out of my mind for any length of time.