I was fairly young the first time I experienced a death in my family. We lived close to a number of relatives on my mother's side. I was about eight or so when a chaotic day ended with the news that my little sister was born and my Aunt Janet died. It was all a very unusual experience. At the time I although I saw my aunt weekly (sometimes more) and I really didn't know her well. I remembered one time when she picked me up from school because I was sick and for some reason my parents were busy. She brought me over to her house and I did a puzzle. It is a lovely memory and it became the symbol to me of that woman who was connected to me but I didn't feel connected to.
A year or two later my grandfather died. This was a stranger experience for my young mind. Grandpa was old, not like my aunt when she died. It seemed a more normal experience and yet my mother took it very hard, I was a little confused. Aren't you supposed to die when you got old. What I didn't know at the time that somebody isn't supposed to die in their sixties.
A year or two later my father's mother died. My father's family is quite different than my mothers and they express emotion in a more noticeable way. They were so visibly upset that many got sick. They were almost overly emotional but their emotional ties to their mother and grandmother were heightened because they had already experienced loss. My father's father died when he was ten years old. The death of my grandmother was taking away the only parent many of my fathers siblings ever knew. This funeral was the first one I cried at, I was about twelve and old enough to really understand what death was.
Memorial day is an interesting American holiday. It is like Remembrance day in Canada, but the emphasis over the last while seems to be more on remembering loved ones who've died as opposed to those who died defending our freedom. In Canada we didn't get as sad on Remembrance day because we didn't know any relatives who'd died in a war. Here my new in-laws decorate many generations of ancestors graves. I have never done that before. Perhaps it's because my ancestors graves are spread out all over Canada and several US states.
Death has touched my family over the last five years as well. Five years ago another one of my aunts from my mothers side died, again just like my first aunt this one died in her forties leaving a growing family behind. Three years ago a first cousin of mine died from a brain tumor. The funeral happened while I was in the hospital giving birth to my second daughter.
Then death came to me in a new way, and I have to admit it shook me much more than my previous experiences with death. A close friend had a baby die, her little boy was almost the same age as my second child. I went to the funeral and it changed me forever. In my experience people who were older were the ones who died, not children. A child dying is something people can't hardly ever hear of happening because it is scary. Children rebound and recover from things older people can't. It shakes up your perspective when someone you know quite well loses a child.
This last year has been the most I have ever dealt with death, and granted it has still been from a distance. My husband was a pallbearer at a funeral of someone we both knew as teenagers. She was older and had been battling cancer. Then the unimaginable happened again. A cousin whose wife I had recently been getting to know fairly well....their little 20 month old died.
Then early last month a neighbor died in her fifties from ASL. A week ago a sister in law lost her father, he was also too young.
This last memorial day was a different day for me. My cousin's little boy, his birthday was the 31st of May and then I found out that my very best friend had lost a baby and his birthday was on the 31st as well. I started to feel weighed down. Death was coming from everywhere. No one was exempt, young, middle aged, old... it didn't matter anyone at anytime.
Sometimes I really hate growing up. Bubbles get shattered and life seems so much darker and more scary. Waking up at night and checking to see if all your children and your husband are breathing....I don't like it. Let alone every time the phone rings worrying who it might be this time and whether it's going to hit even closer to home.
I think the thing that bothers me the most though is that there is little to nothing I can do to ease the pain of those who are right next to the pain suffering intensely from losing those they are closest to. I cry at night because of their pain and wish that I could do more. I pray for them but it doesn't seem like enough. I try and send encouraging notes of support, but I often worry that I'm not helping and may be saying the wrong thing. I'm grateful I have my belief system to comfort me. Knowing in my heart that God has prepared a way for people to be together after death gives me intense comfort.
If you are suffering from the loss of a loved one, know that you are not alone. Even if you don't believe in a higher power. We are one big human family and somebody somewhere is wishing you well. Tonight I will pray for you, even if I don't know who you are. I'm going to send it out into the night hoping that it will ease your pain.
