Here's an excerpt from the daughter's post, obviously written with great love for her mother and great sadness for her mother's death. The emphasis and comments in parenthesis are mine:

There is a time to say goodbye. No, it is not easy, but if you have walked down this path, the path of losing a family member to a terminal illness, then you have probably stood by their bed and told them farewell. My sisters and I did this the day after Mother arrived in the Hospice Unit (should have been a clue as to what was to come). Though she was almost in a comatose state, her eyes would open when you spoke to her. We knew that she could hear and understand what we were saying.

Many times families don't have the opportunity to say goodbye. If death is unexpected or comes suddenly, often there is not time for closure. From my perspective that would be very hard. You would give anything to say, "I love you" one more time, or "I'll join you in heaven someday."

It became obvious to us that Mother was beginning to have some pain. Therefore, after we had our goodbye moments with Mother, My sisters and I told the nurses that it would be ok with us if she slept the 'rest of the way'. The nurses understood what we meant and agreed to comply with our wishes. She was kept sedated and relaxed all the way to the end.

Unfortunately, the daughter learned too late what so many families are ignorant to or simply disregard - death by starvation and dehydration is a terrible way to die:

I do have one regret that I must mention. This may sound disgusting, but because some of my readers may be in this same situation, I must share it anyway. One of the things I did not expect and was not warned about (a common hospice practice) when we took the feeding tube away, was the effect that dehydration would have on Mother's body. I knew her kidneys would shut down. I expected that. What I did not expect was the effect dehydration would have on her tongue. For some reason I did not notice it at first. Perhaps because it happened slowly over about 3 days. Her tongue began to dry out. It looked chapped and well, just awful. That must have painful. It could have been the main source of her pain. We don't know because she could not tell us. I don't know why, but I didn't mention it to the nurses. Perhaps my mind was on other things, and perhaps I thought nothing could be done to help. I feel badly that I didn't at least try to do something. Sometimes I wish that we had changed the feeding tube to just come clear liquids to have prevented her tongue from drying out. Eventually someone brought in something topical we could put on her tongue. I don't think it helped much though.

Clearly, what the daughter didn't realize during her time of great sorrow and the hospice never told her is that basic hydration and nutrition is a basic human need, NOT an option of medical care. Food and water should never be considered an option.

As I've previously posted, "Death by dehydration is protracted and painful for the patient (if conscious) and for the family and hospital staff in all cases. One need only recall photos from the Ethiopian famine to realize the enormity of the act. It is illegal in some states to starve a horse or dog to death. Surely human beings deserve the same protection."

And as I've also previously posted and as we move forward in this post-Terri Schiavo world, we need to not lose sight of the tragic causes of Terri's death - the emergence of a euthanasia-accepting secular society, a loss of respect for life fostered by legal abortion, and an activist anti-life and anti-faith secular and liberal judiciary. Sadly, in the case of the mother who died of cancer referred to in this post, another human being died a tragically painful death because a euthanasia-accepting secular hospice turned a blind eye to human suffering. The hospice ignored the fact that all patients, no matter how severe or hopeless their illness, have the basic right to nursing care, emotional support, food, and water.

Related readings:
A Painless Death?
(Linked to in this post): Hydration and Nutrition: A Basic Human Need, Not an Option of Medical Care