Understanding Grief: Personal Reflections on Loss
When someone dies in your family or even has a close call, it turns your whole life around. There are people in your life you don’t want anything to happen to, even though everyone will die one day, that’s how life works.
In my life, I have dealt with more death than I wish I could have, but a lot less than others. But just because others have worse doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt. In my old blog (that I really don’t think anyone but me has read), I wrote a post all about death. I am going to post some of that here (I won’t change or correct spelling or grammar because it’s how I used to write back in 2018.)
‘Death, it takes a huge toll on every one’s body. Some people grieve for a few days, some its a few months, others could be years. Grieving is also done in many different ways, some knit, some do yoga, some cry all the time. There are many ways to grieve, they all have to do with the person who is grieving and the person they are grieving. But what’s harder then grieving a dead person is grieving someone who is alive. Someone who you know is dying, someone who has given up on life. They usually don’t want you sad over the fact that they are going to die, but you still are but you can’t let them know that so you have to be sad in private. What about the people who are dying and start selling things that they really love so they have money for their funeral since they don’t want you to worry about being able to afford it. ‘ – I wrote a post on facebook back in December after a cousin sent an awful text message to my mom basically saying she (my mom) didn’t care about her (my cousin) or her mom (my aunt, mom’s sister). My aunt died in November and the whole thing finally brought more people to the knowledge that my cousin is basically crazy (I don’t like calling people crazy, but trust me she has done so many things in her life that brings everyone to that conculsion) I am not going to get into many detail about the whole thing but I will share my post I put on Facebook, hoping and wishing that she read it and understood that it was about her.
When I was 3 when my one grandpa died (grandpa moo, as we all called him). 10 months later I was not 4, and my other grandpa died, he is the one that hit harder, as I seen him all the time, he was my person at such a young age, (i was also the favorite grandchild.)
When I was 14, my grandma died (Grandma Moo). I was in high school, my freshman year. It happened during spring break, and actually it’s funny, well not funny funny but like funny. Before the break, I took my French test, and one of the questions asked ‘How many grandparents are alive’ and I said I had 2 grandmothers. Once I got back from break, I asked my teacher if I could change the test because I now only have 1 grandma left. (For some reason, I thought she would know and I would fail) Spoiler, she didn’t let me change it, but I did get a B+ on the test, so like I was cool with that.
My last grandma is still alive (she doesn’t want to be, but tough, she has to live)
Losing grandparents so young was tough; a lot of my friends still had them alive, and actually, a lot of them still are to this day. I felt like I was missing out on all the fun grandparents’ stories. Death isn’t fun, funerals are even worse. (Weird side note, I almost took a job as a funeral director, super grateful I didn’t, cause I’m not sure I could handle the emotion.)
This decade, I’ve lost a lot more people, my own cousin at a young age of 40, 1 uncle, 1 aunt, etc. I mean, I’ve had others in my life, but no one who really made a huge dent in my life.
There is so much more I could write about death, but I am gonna wait, it’s just an emotional thing to write about and to talk about, so I will need time before I can fully cop with writing more.
How do you cope with death? Do you have a process to help with the grieving process?
