Death visiting your life

Through the course of your life, have you experienced many deaths close to heart? Friends? Family? How do you personally deal with this sort of loss?

I`ve been pretty fortunate in this area. I`ve never had a friend die, and as far as family is concerned my grandfather died eleven years ago but I was never really around him enough to care. I mean, he was around on Holidays and things like that, maybe two months a year when he went to Hollywood (California) from Guatemala, but he was a drunk and we never really bonded. Over a year ago a very close friend of my mother`s died of cancer. She had written me several times in prison, even tried to reconsole me with Christianity, and she died a little bit after that. It was odd and slightly hurtful to see her letters and know I`d never get another from her. Shame I hadn`t seen her since I was about ten. I feel bad for criticizing her beliefs in my responses to her.

When I was little I remember my mother told me the old lady that babysat me died. That did kind of hurt. I was a little kid and remember spending Easter with her. I even taught her to play Super Mario 2. Slightly, anyway.

So, yeah. People have died around me but for the most part I didn`t know them enough to care. How about you Charlie?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I had to deal with deaths in the family since I was little. My Grandmother, whom I was very close with, died when I was about 6 and my mom didn't really sugar coat the truth. Since I was so young, it took me a while to really understand the whole concept of "she's never coming back". The next death that hit really close to home was a few years ago when my Great-Grandmother comitted suicide, although we weren't told that little detail until earlier this year. A year later, my uncle died really suddenly and that was the first death I had a really difficult time dealing with. He was only 56 and he died of all natural causes. Our families were really close and I have so many memories of him from when I was a little girl that it stung really badly for quite a while.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Hmm...

When I was 8, my cousin died because of car accident. She was 17 I believe. I didn't know her to well, and I didn't cry at her funeral, but as the years passed I kind of get sad.

When I was 12, my sister gave birth to a baby that died a few hours later. That was such an awful night. I remember that night well. I don't like thinking about it.

When I was 14, the same thing happened to my same sister. She gave birth to a baby that died a few hours later. That event will always hurt me the most, because I actually feel a connection to that baby, her name is Lisette. And my sister showed me what she looked like. She was so small. Could probably fit in my hand and she didn't have a real color. I always cry thinking about her.

When I was 15, my uncle died. I felt sad, but I didn't know him too well, so I didn't really know how I should react. Tio Rodo. I do miss him. His death made my dad so sad.

I mostly felt sorry for my dad. Him losing his sister, then his baby brother.
I don't like to think about my uncle though. Because I'm so much more sensitive than I use to be and might cry...

My Granda died this year, but...I didn't really care.
I know that sounds awful, but it's the truth. I really didn't like that woman. She was so mean. Always calling me fat and making fun of me. I'm sorry, but I didn't care much about when she died. I saw her 4 times in my life. She lived across the world in Bolivia.

Oh well.

There's my story.

As far as dealing with losses, I don't know. It's been so long. I moved on, except for remembering every now and then..

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I've been fortunate, not alot of deaths in my family but that time is almost up. My Uncle died of type 1 diabeties when I was 12 or so. I was never that close to him because he liked to keep to himself alot. He died a bit before his 50th birthday.
My first dog (chocolate lab) died when I was 10, I cried for days since I used to play with her almost every day. We had her put down when she was 15.
My great grandma died along time ago when I was about 7, I don't remember her too much. Right now my grandpa is in hospital and cannot talk or get out of bed. He has lost over 100 pounds, and has parkisans and can't even hold his eyes open. I don't like to visit him too often.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I haven't experienced much death. The first funeral I went to was for a relative I barely knew. A cousin of my grandmother, I think. One of my friend's dad died. He was a good man and I cried as the service, though I don't know why. We hadn't ever had a conversation. Maybe I just felt bad for my friend. Ever since the man's death, he's gotten worse...

The first major death, if it can be called that, came earlier this year in April. My granny died during surgery. If she'd lasted a few more weeks, she'd have come to my graduation. The whole thing made me respect her, the life she had, the troubles she went through, and the way she did things. I realized that even though the way she told stories relaly frustrated me, I never got lost. They were good that way. The night service before the funeral was the first time I think I've ever seen my dad cry. It made me feel terrible. I just couldn't produce the same emotion. I didn't have the same tie. I didn't know her as well. It made me think I should've gotten to know her better. I learned more that night about her than I'd ever learned before. She was a strong woman, raising four children by herself. She looked out for others, making sure everyone was treated well and taken care of. She always spoke her mind and related experiences. She was one of the best people I've ever met, I never got to know her. The fact that my dad and other relatives could cry and I couldn't made me feel terrible. I'd lost someone important, but didn't know it. I really miss her. I really, really do.

I was speaking idiomatically.

My grandfather died this year. On March 30th, he passed away due to lung cancer. That's the only death significant to me that I've experienced.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

There's never been anything truly direct for me. My grandparents on my mother's side were dead before I was born anyway, but her stepdad died when I was too young to even recall him, and the same goes for my father's parents.

As for people I actually got to know, I recall my old art teacher (well, I say old; he was about 40) who was friends with my older brother and my mother, and who also taught me for a year in highschool, died from lung cancer soon after I left the school. I went to a memorial service but I never went to the funeral, which I still feel pangs of guilt about. He was a very popular and talented man; the whole school was crushed. That's about as close as I've ever had death in my life.

FELIPE NO

A girl named Katy helped me out a lot when I was in High School... She helped me get out of my self-pity/depression when I was in grade 11. The following year we talked a lot about private things. She was a very gentle and nice person. Very wonderful woman to meet.

She past away at age 20. Doctors say she had worn herself out and got sick. It just got worse. She passed away in March of 2003...

This year I worked in the cemetary she was buried in. I visited the gravesite often. She helped me become the person I am today.

She loved children, which is the main reason why I am entering Education.

Bless Her.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by The Wise Vivi

A girl named Katy helped me out a lot when I was in High School... She helped me get out of my self-pity/depression when I was in grade 11. The following year we talked a lot about private things. She was a very gentle and nice person. Very wonderful woman to meet.

She past away at age 20. Doctors say she had worn herself out and got sick. It just got worse. She passed away in March of 2003...

This year I worked in the cemetary she was buried in. I visited the gravesite often. She helped me become the person I am today.

She loved children, which is the main reason why I am entering Education.

Bless Her.

That's sad. You're lucky to have met her.

I've never had any friends pass away, so I can't really relate. My grandparents (my dad's side) passed away and my aunt (my dad's sister) passed away. I didn't really know them too well though. I was too young. It's still sad and I've cried thinking about it a long time ago.

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I have death exp everyday but not my relative or friends.
I'm 4th year medical student practicing in ward (medicine) so there's many severe patient.
However I still can't get used it, esp when their cousin crying.
One day there's a young girl about 18 yr, she died from heart failure and her family were there, I saw her mother hug her cried and cried like she've lost her mind.
I can't do a thing because I was doing CPR on the other patient with intern.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I haven't experienced much death in my family. The only one I can remember is my great grandmother, who I loved very much, and I was indeed very sad when she passed away.
We lived so far away from each other though, and a lot of our bond was lost in the last years of her life. Makes me feel stupid still that I didn't go and visit her more.

Other than that, no real family deaths... Almost all my mourning has been for pets strangely enough. We had a dog that I pretty much grew up with, and he died when I was around 12 or so I guess, I was absolutely devastated over that. We also had a pet bird at the same time, and when she died a few years later I was also incredibly sad. Funny how you can bond with your pets in that way.

Death is something that I am very afraid of, and I worry a great deal about it. Not so much for myself, but I am incredibly afraid of losing the people I love. The feeling that a friend or family member will be gone forever is very hard for me to "grasp". I know it's something one must accept, and I guess I will learn. But it really scares me.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

When I was 14, one of my better friends passed away in the Tsunami - she was in Thailand for Christmas, and... Yeah. It's something that still gets me down very, very often.

My grandfather died roughly two years ago - We weren't close, but it feels like it's left a hole in my life.

One of the better friends my mother and I have had ever since the big family schism in 2003 was this really generous guy named Robert. American, used to live in Chicago, moved down to France to play golf and do renovations for people. Was leaving a bar on Christmas eve last year, slipped and cracked his skull - Died in hospital two days later. Poor man.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

My dad died 12 years ago & my mom died a year ago. I'm all alone now in their big house (flat), which is mine now, & it's pretty hard.

I never told my E-Pals & my pen pals even on my father's death, & I'm thinking of doing that soon, do you think they're going to be angry with me for not telling anything about it for all these years?!

I was speaking idiomatically.

Why would they be angry Miki? I wouldn't be.


My Dad died in the front seat of our car when I was little. A drunk driver crashed into us as we were going on to a bridge. That was hard because my Mum had to leave for another state to stay with my brother in the hospital, so she sent me to live for about a year with relatives that I didn't know very well. It was like losing both of them. I'm not sure how I dealt with it, I was pretty young and expected to not be so "grumpy." About that time I started pretending like I didn't have heavy emotions and never got upset. (Yeah, right. People bought it though.) It lasted until my mid-teens, when I got a stepdad and he knew it was all bs. He made me deal with a lot of crap that I'd carried around for years and years, it was hard but I slowly came alive again. Mostly it was just someone telling me that yes, I had a right to be angry and sad over it and that was okay. It's kind of pathetic, but I guess I needed that permission. Most of my younger life was trying to not cause problems for my Mum, so talking about my Dad with anyone was out of the question, weirdly enough my stepdad was the first person who actually wanted me to talk about it.

Eventually that wound healed, though it still makes me sad to think about it.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

When I was growing up I had a lot of great-grandparents die, but they all lived in other states so I never really knew them that well.

When I was 15, one of my great-grandmothers that I knew very well died and two and a half weeks later another great-grandmother died. I lived on the same piece of property as the second and we were very close. Her death was hard to deal with. About two months later, my dad's youngest sister died of an "accidental" suicide. I felt bad for the rest of my family, but I didn't know her very well so it didn't affect me that much.

When I was 16, one of my closest friends killed himself four days after we went out on a date and two days after I turned him down for a second date. Two months later, my great-grandfather that lived back east died. I was sad because I had always wanted to meet him and had just never gotten the chance.

Every year of high school, someone died. I only knew a few, and I was only really close to the one, but it is still depressing to see such young kids dying.

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My father died of acute leukemia about a year and a half ago. He had been struggling with it for about 6 or so years, and had been hospitalized previously a few times and made it back. But when he got back home he needed a lot of special care. When he got back the second to last time he was hospitalized, he said that he didn't want to go through with the chemo-therapy again, because it was just such a painful experience. But he did in fact go back to the hospital and get more chemo-therapy. I think the third to last time I visited him, he was in a cheerful state, just happy to see my brother, my mother and I. The next I visited him with my mother and he was convulsing and more or less unconscious. That was not pleasant. I didn't know how to feel, so I didn't feel, basically. Then the last time I saw him, we had recieved a call from the hospital on his death. My brother came home at midnight immedietaly and all of us cried together. Strange enough, prior to recieving the phone call (I was the first to realize his death) my cable modem was out of service. Which is disconcerting to any high speed user I'm sure, and I recieved the call then. Weird couincidence?

The night of visiting him in his deathbed was very sad. I really didn't know how to feel, the concept, the idea, was and IS so abstract to me. I had only dealed with death a couple times before, and only one of those times was it for someone I knew, a friend who I had associated with.

To this day I still have a kind of sad numbness on my father's death. I have not fully grieved. My mother proposed that teenagers of my age group can often suppress their grief when something like this happens, and then later in life deal with it harder. I've avoided the grief, but I still think about him, and am constantly reminded of him. My friends set it aside, and I haven't really talked with anyone a lot about it. At this point my salvation to grieving is going to come through the act of writing.

A part of me says, however, that I shouldn't be sad. You know? That my dad would not want me to be sad. But to continue on knowing that he was proud of me. But I know that it's this numbness of feeling that ails me, a bit. As an aspiring poet, I find solace in words often.

I'm taking a poetry class at the moment, and just this week we covered the Elegy poem. I'm thinkin' I'm gonna have to write some stuff.

Gee, I hope that wasn't too sad.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I would say I had more firends die then family. My great grand mother and great grand father died when I was 6 or 7 so it did not effect me.

When the time comes for my grand parents to die on my father's side of the family, I will be heart broken. My poppy is the most lovable man in the world and has to give us a hug when we visit. When the time comes for my grand parents to die on my mother side, it is sad to say that I do not think I will be effect very much, I know them well, but they are not the most lovable people around, and my grandfather is more of a grumpy old man type.

I had a firend who died of leukaemia when I was 16 and I was very upset over it, and the day my Cat Snowball died was the end of the world for me and took a long time for me to cope.

Jam it back in, in the dark.