Death. . . how do we cope. . .

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Many of us have suffered losses recently through the deaths of our loved ones. The suffering of the dead is over, but they leave so many of us behind. Whether by faith, acceptance, avoidance, humor, anger, some other way, how have you coped? (All replies are welcome that are respectful of others.)

I’ll start with some of my family’s experiences.

My parents coped with the death by trying to forget. When my twin sister died as an infant, she was mentioned again only once during my growing up years. No one ever visited her grave, and there were no pictures in the house of her. My mother told us about her when I was about 10; until then I hadn’t known I was a twin.

When my mother died, my grandmother mourned so deeply for this daughter-in-law, that she could not seem to recover. She talked about her almost constantly to us, and missed her terribly. Her spirits declined so greatly that within a year, she herself died, after a very short battle with cancer.

My siblings and I deal with Mom’s death by talking about her amongst ourselves, laughing at remembered witticisms, repeating her advice, exchanging anecdotes. . .

Sometimes I will hear a good joke, or get stuck on a crossword puzzle, or feel proud of something one of my daughers has done, and think about walking into the kitchen to call Mom, and then I remember. And it has been almost ten years.

2

I guess the one thing that has helped me through some of the separations that I have gone through was the belief that after this life was over I would see them in heaven. We Christians have a blessed assurance that when we get to heaven, we will see those who we have loved and lost if they were saved before death…but if they didn’t it’s another story :frowning: Revelation 21 says that God will one day wipe away EVERY tear from our eyes which gives me a bit of comfort in troubling times. My story is that last year, which was my first year in college. I had just gotten back to my room and I received a call from my mother and was informed that 4 kids that I really knew well were killed in a car crash. The bad part is that I live next to the train tracks and she heard it.

3

I think your doing just fine.

I believe in talking about the loved one who has passed. I fondly remember my granny as making THE BEST German chocolate cake (from scratch). I have friends who are widows who I encourage to talk about their spouse when they want to. It makes people uncomfortable to not be able to talk about the loved one.

Obviously your mom was a great lady to have you still fondly remember her after ten years. Those memories will be the legacy you can pass down to future generations. Don’t ever stop talking about her.

4

Time. So far, after all the deaths I’ve lived to see, time is the only thing that’s helped. The most recent death in my life was the death of my best friend. She was 17 years old. They say she fell asleep behind the wheel of the her car. I don’t know if I can accept that, but I’ve stopped trying to form my own theory.

She died on April 10, 2000. I’ll never forget the phone call I got from my mom that evening. I’ll never forget the drive to her house that night. I’ll never forget the week that followed. I’ll never forget her funeral or the burial ceremony that followed. But most of all, I’ll never forget her. I’ll never forget that she was my best friend.

For awhile after she was buried, I couldn’t think without thinking of her. I couldn’t sleep without having dreams about her. Not just dreams, real nightmares. Her family and I are really close. We always have been, but I couldn’t even go into that house. We had a song. :slight_smile: She dedicated “How Do I Live” by Leann Rimes to me after I came out of a long period of severe depression. She would sing along and replace the word “baby” with my name, Sarah. :slight_smile: After she died, I didn’t even think about listening to that song.

In the past few months, it’s gotten a lot better. I still think of her everyday but it’s not so hard. I’ve accepted that she’s gone. Of course I miss her, but I have to live my own life. I haven’t had a nightmare in a long time. I went to her grave a few days ago and sang our song. :slight_smile: I cried. Hell, I’m crying now. But it has gotten better. It always gets better. It just takes a bit longer for some people.

5

In my family it depends on the circumstances of the death.

Three examples:
My maternal grandmother died a few years ago, and although we mourned her we didn’t need extra time to grieve. It didn’t hit any of us terribly hard, not even my mother. We loved her, but she was 87 and had been threatening to die for years. She obviously didn’t want to live, so when she did it was kind of a relief.

My brother died two years ago of congestive heart failure brought on by a blood infection. He was 27. He had Down Syndrome, and although his death at that time was unexpected (he was sick for a week before but otherwise healthy) we’d all had 20 some-odd years to get used to the idea that he’d eventually die. When he did we cried a lot, but we had more laughter than tears. We had so many wonderful memories and stories, that all we did the day after was talk. My sister’s boyfriend thought we were a heartless bunch, because we actually laughed. We all clung together for a year after, but although it will always sting, we’ve got over it.

And then, a few months later, my aunt died of undiagnosed melanoma that reached her brainstem. She too was sick for a week. That was far more of a shock. Maybe it was her family’s reaction that governed ours, but we barely talked about her or her death afterwards. Her funeral was a lot more solemn than my brother’s with a lot more tears. Then we got drunk and had a grand time with my cousins.

What does that say about my family? I don’t have a clue.

6

Michael died five years ago.
I still talk about him almost every day. People I’ve met since then know who he is. He truly will never leave me, and will be a part of my daily life as long as I live.

7

I think this is best, actually.

I was 10 before I knew my aunt had died before I was born.

The family album had just a clipping. “Girl hit crossing ___ street”.

She lived, she died, she was remembered by those who knew her, but not by me who had never known her. Seems like enough.

Other people I’ve known have wallowed in the past and made shrines of dead loved ones graves, with continual flowers and flags. The ones I’m thinking of overdid it to the extent they would harm living people: “Your sister was the smart one. If she had lived, she’d take care of me now.”
The hurt inflicted on the living in the name of the dead was quite depressing.

I guess I’m just saying there’s no one right way, and not to second guess your parents.

8

I had an uncle, Erin. I never even knew about him until I was about 10. The only reason I ever found out about him was because I was old enough to start wondering who this extra guy was in all my Grandma’s wall pictures. Turns out he died a few years before I was born while either wrecking a big rig, or running into a big rig. Something like that. They don’t ever really talk about it, I think the entire family’s dealt really well with the loss. I only hear about him when my uncles are discussing their childhood, or old friends, or crap they did. It was really strange realizing I had an uncle I’d never met and never would (well… not in this life… :wink: )

–Tim

9

The first time I ever dealt with a death that mattered to me, I dealt with it by talking it out. Talking to my friends, writing in my journal, getting it out of my system. The first night after I learned of the person’s death I wrote down all my favorite memories of him before too much time had blurred them over, so I could reread them and always remember. I just let time take over after that.

The second time I still haven’t dealt with and it was almost six months ago. That’s the “forget” version of dealing with stuff. It actually works for me, too, except for when I occasionally REALLY forget, and start looking for him or something. Then it’s like “oh, pain, pack it back in the box quick before it sinks in.” But it works, too.

10

In my family, we try as hard as possible to celebrate the lives of our loved ones when they leave us. Some of our best family gatherings have been post-funeral.

When my grandmother died last year, I was asked to give a short speech and read a poem (the people in my family think that I and my Uncle Jimmy are gifted at speaking, so we always get asked). Anyway, I stayed up for nearly two nights trying to come up with something. The night before her funeral, as I was leaving the funeral parlor, I heard this tremendous burst of laughter from a large group of people in the viewing room. Not a big surprise, really, because my family is very funny. But that’s when it hit me–that is what I would write about. The laughter, and how when we can laugh during a time of sorrow, we know that the healing process has begun, and my grandmother wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. The speech worked out well.

After my step-grandfather died in 1994, several of my family members went out to a local bar for beer. I went as well, and heard some of the funniest stories about my grandfather that I’ve ever heard. I laughed until my sides hurt. And my grandfather wouldn’t have expected anything less from us.

Sharing the stories helps, in my family. It always has. We’re a family of talkers (as if that’s a big surprise, loking at my post count and the length of this post). My grandfather (not the above mentioned deceased one) was a broadcaster in Armed Forces Radio during WWII, the moved to regular radio for a few years, then got in to television, where he spent 25 years as a reporter and anchor. Our ability to communicate is genetic. To paraphrase Linda Ellerbee, in my family, brevity is an acquired taste. But the talking helps us cope. We get the hurt out instead of keeping it inside, and it works for us.

11

Writing. When my paternal grandfather died two months ago, this normally vocal (if not loquacious) person found herself unable to really talk about him, or his death. All I could do was write (and cry)…every memory that came flooding back to me in the days following his death went into my journal. He was 87, and he was really suffering, but his loss has been very difficult for me. My Christian faith, once simple and even a touch naive, is at a point of crisis…I have this dread, this horrible, horrible fear, that death is The End. Hell doesn’t frighten me anywhere near as much as Nothingness. I ache to know my Papa is alive, somewhere, somehow, that his spirit has continued, and am anguished that I do not (and likely cannot) know. The thought that his essence left with his body…it gives me shudders.

When my other grandfather passed away two weeks ago, it was similar. I didn’t talk about it hardly at all, to anyone, even Brian. I hardly even wrote, in fact…I did write something that was read at the funeral (as I could not attend). Frankly, I think I’m still a bit stunned from the first death and am left rather crippled in my ability to handle this one.

Hmm. I’m really getting uncomfortable, and even a touch unnerved…think it’s time to end this post.

12

My thoughts are with you, Ruffian.

13

I just realized, in reading this thread, that I am lucky. Sometimes I get really depressed and I don’t like the way life is going and everything, but I really believe, after reading this thread, that I have never had to go through anything that could even compare to what you people have gone through. No one that I have known well has died. Sure, there have been a few people I know. Probably the closest was my best friend’s dad. I didn’t really know him, heck, then I didn’t really even know the kid that is now my best friend. I missed his funeral, and am still mad at myself about that. I haven’t had any of my 4 grandparents die, nor either of my parents, nor my sister, nor anyone I know at school or church. I am truly blessed.

14

I’m not sure if you meant that toward my situation, or just in general. I meant merely to relate differing ways my family handled grief, and did not mean to imply any criticism of anyone. I would imagine that the most difficult death to deal with is the loss of a child, and I can’t even begin to imagine how my parents continued, and raised four children after that happened to them.

Everyone deals with death and grief in their own way.

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts and feelings.

15

While I agree that there probably isn’t a ‘best way’ to cope with grief, [not that anyone would seek to do it, if there actually was] so much depends on the circumstances and the people involved, ** saam **

One of the stages of grief is denial, and when you keep silent, no pictures, etc. you run the risk of really being in denial of that person’s life and subsequent death.

It also isn’t good to stay stuck in any one stage, but to accept that being human, we won’t do anything perfectly, and though even those of us who feel confident we’ll see our loved ones again, it doesn’t fill our arms in the here and NOW. The times we move to the phone with good news, only to stand frozen in our steps because it hits us again full force, ‘they aren’t there.’

The many celebrations that go on throughout life, the births, weddings, and graduations, there is that empty spot, that you carry that pain, that registers as a lump in your throat. There isn’t anything * wrong with that, * it’s normal and natural.

But truth is a huge liberator. My husband’s birth mother died in a car accident when he was only five, he was in the car, the ONLY memory he has of her is one with her head covered in blood. His father wouldn’t allow anyone to talk of his first wife, Jeanette, no pictures etc. But constantly insulted anyone caught drunk driving. We all had assumed that the accident had been at the hands of a drunk.

Mannnnnnnny years later, my husband and I had offered to clean up the house of my husband’s maternal grandfather, [he had died] Jeanette’s father, and that’s when we uncovered a bunch of newspaper clippings about the accident. ** My husband’s father had been at fault,** pulling out in front of an oncoming vehicle the day after Thanksgiving in 1956, before seatbelts were in cars.

** Guilt ** made my husband’s father keep silent, and subsequently, he wasn’t ever close emotionally to his sons, and now they aren’t close to their wives. TRUTH would have been better, than the silence. The sons might still have been crummy husbands, but maybe not because they were too afraid to be close to anyone.

{{{{{{{{{{{{{Laura}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

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{{{{{{{{Friends at SDMB}}}}}}}}

from Spider Woman

17

For a time I felt as if Death was walking right behind me striking down those people I loved the most. In the span of only a few years he took my step-brothers and my nephews with muscular dystrophy and my step father with liver disease. My grandfather managed to cheat death for a hundred years but Death does get us all eventually.

He took one of my friends from school using a drunk driver and used suicide on another.

Boys cry.

Death took a vacation for a while and left me and mine alone for a time…

My paternal grandfather knew his odds going into surgery but wasn’t dealt a winning hand. He played well though. My grandmother lived ten years after my grandfather’s death and mourned the loss of her husband of 56 years every single day. Before she allowed Death to take her she watched as we buried her eldest son, my real father. He died on what was to have been our first father’s day together.

Men cry.

Death tried his best to take my nephew a year ago but he fucked up, he didn’t take into account my nephew’s incredible will to live.

I walked on the edge of insanity for a while and cursed god on the off chance he exists before I came to terms with death, he is going to get us all eventually and there isn’t much we can do except celebrate the lives of those who have gone on before us. As long as we don’t forget them death can’t really have them completely can he?

18

that was truly eloquent. And as for this:

That is also my hope.

Anti Pro, I believe, like you, that much would be served by facing our grief, but also know that some just cannot. It makes for many even sadder stories.

19

As I’ve been sitting here, I’ve been thinking about everyone that I’ve lost… good Lord. Some of them still are with me, if that makes any sense. I draw from them.

One of the first deaths that really affected me was the suicide of a boy from my neighborhood. I was 14, he was 13. We’d grown up together. It was beyond senseless. To this day, I see the repercussions of Keith’s death in my community. I don’t think that there’s a single person who went to school with him or who lived in my neighborhood that can’t recall every excruciating detail of that week. Some people just never were the same.

Alison was my bowling partner in Special Olympics. She was an autistic kid. For some reason, I could work with her when other people couldn’t. She was run over by a car several years ago.

My dog and my grandmother died in the same week of Febuary 1999. I’m the youngest grandchild on my paternal side, and I didn’t know Mommom nearly as well as the rest of my family. At her funeral, I was floored by the story of her life that I’d never really known. Over the next year I wrote my first play in her memory. It’s not about her, but it’s about dealing with grief.

The most recent death that still haunts me is the death of my classmate Ron. He drowned several days before graduation- the day that we were done with exams. I can still hear him talking about how fun it was to swim in the quarry where he died.

Gods… I’ve lost 7 other people in the past five years, but those are the ones that haunt me the most. I guess I cope by remembering them and writing about them.

20

By “Ashtar”

Fate
Don’t know much about life.
O’, Naive Man.
But thine own blessed body is but dust.

Borne from the Earth-Mother
As is all life. A great equalizer.

What is love but a driving force?
Love for the Good. Love for the Evil.
Love of the Sacred. Love of the Damned.

Bound within all there was.
All there is.
And all there will be.

But why?

Tick-tock.
Tick-tock.

Time forgets all.

We love. We hate.
We strive to learn.
But we fail to understand.

Preserve us–for Time forgets us!
Save us–for our bodies become dust!

Man’s cruel Fate.

Pray We that Time forgives all.
Pray We that Time brings End beyond the Chaos.

Forgive us, Father. We are coming home.
Amen.