• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Has anybody close to you died? How did they pass? How did you react?

B

Broohaha

Banned
I've only lost two grandparents, both when quite young. Nobody else at all. I don't know how I'm gonna deal with death when it starts becoming part of my life...
 
I lost a brother recently. Died of two massive strokes at 23 the result of a lifetime of juvenille diabetes, and another form of diabetes regulating electrolytes...

It's hard, but you deal. Me and my other brothers dealt by being funny about the situation and his life (blindness, dialsys, etc). Was hard at first, but it gets easier as time goes by. He lived with me and another brother of ours for about 3 years upto his death. That made it harder.
 
My father and granfather when I was 4ish and my other grandfather a few years ago?
hepatitis(grug addict); a heart attack; and old age combined with lung cancer and diabeties
How did I feel? That was the last time Nitemare cried.

It's sad but it is a part of life
 
My grandfather on my father's sided died when I was 2. I took that especially hard because we were very very close. I cried for days and had trouble sleeping for about a year.

My father died when I was 15 (May of '87) from heart problems and complications relating to a trip to the VA hospital (Do not get me started on those bastards) - I was a typical teenager and not really close to my dad so it wasn't that hard. It was sad but surreal. Also he was creamated and since I never really saw him dead I didn't accept it for a long time. I just chose to believe he was just not around. (Weird I know).

My grandfather on my Mother's side died October of 96. He had cancer. I was very upset over it because we had gotten close during my teenage years. Basically, I cried off and on for several days.

My grandmother on my Father's side died in April of 97. (cancer) We had grown apart so I was sad that someone I knew had died and felt guilty because I wasn't sadder.

My grandmother on my Mother's side died in February of 01. (diabete's related kidney failure) I cried but I was glad because she had been very sick.

My mother died May 1, 2002. (Diabetes related kidney and heart failure) I have had the toughest time with this. I was INCONSOLABLE for weeks. I am still having trouble with this. She was my last real family member and now I'm like an orphan. (even though I am 30 years old) I don't think you can describe the pain of loosing your Mom. There is a hole in my heart that can never be filled. Whenever I think about the things I didn't do for her or the times I treated her badly, I just can't even tell you the pain that shoots through my heart. This was also the toughest because I was the one responsible for planning her funeral, picking out her coffin, and selling her home- my childhood home. Every step of that process is a knife through the heart.

Cliff's Notes:
Grandfather- '74 = sad
Father- '87 = denial
Grandfather- '96 = sad
Grandmother- '97 = not so sad
Grandmother- '01 = sad but relieved
Mother- '02 = miserably heartbroken

 
Wow...I must be one of the luckiest people on earth, so far. I've not had anyone close to me die. Closest was a great aunt and a great uncle I saw a few times or my great-grandmothers (again, just saw them a few times).
 
Warning: LONG POST AHEAD.

My roomate - one of my best friends, and two other very close friends (they were brothers), were in a car wreck in Jan '00. My roomate was killed instantly. The two brothers were in critical condition; one died the following day. The other barely survived but is alive today and recovered almost 100%. I had never experienced the death of someone close before.

These 3 men, and myself, are believers in Jesus Christ. Because of this, I had complete assurance that my roomate and friend were, with 100% certainty, in heaven!! I also had complete assurance that my buddy barely hanging onto his life, was completely governed by a soverign God. The dichotomy of my emotions was an interesting experience...On one hand, I was weeping with a sadness because I would never see my friends again on earth. On the other, I was overjoyed knowing that my friends were in heaven praising Jesus! My roomate's family were not Christians. When he died, they mourned the loss of their son in utter hoplessness; angry with God for taking him away. To this day, they are still bitter and remorseful; still mourning and have no eternal hope. In complete contrast, the family of the two brothers are Christians. I cannot tell you what joy and great hope they had in God's soverignty over the death of their son! I was there at the hospital, minutes after the father received word that his son had died. You know what the man did...He let out a flood of tears and weepings while saying, "I praise you Jesus!" :Q This man has had a profound impact on my life.

The next 6 months of my life were very interesting. My roomate was never there again to joke around with, or talk about deep things with. Instead, his clothes hung in the closet, his bookshelf in disarray for the rest of the year. I asked his parents to keep things that way, so I wouldn't have to come home to an empty room for the rest of the school year. My perspective on life was forever changed following the accident. Our lives are short; real short. I can either waste my life by pursuing things of this world, or I can follow hard after Jesus - the only one worth living for! My eternal salvation is secured by the death of Christ. I can't wait until I die!! I don't say that with some morbid welcoming of death. But, I'm not afraid of death because I know when I die, I will spend an eternity with Jesus!
 
I lost both of my grandmothers a few months apart 3 years ago. I was very close to my moms mother. She passed away from malnutrition (she starved herself to death). To my surprise it wasnt as hard as i thought it would be. I was glad to see her pain was over.
 
My father died July '02, when I was 16. He had leukemia and it developed into worse type things and he died. It is still very hard on me if I think about it. I was very close to him and he was a great dad, very involved in my life and a good provider for the family. It was very sad thinking about all the wonderful memories I had with my dad and all the memories yet to come that he won't be involved with. I miss him very much.
 
uncle, grandparents and a close friend to my mother, my philosophy, life goes on nothing you can do but move on
 
My grandfather died, about two years after we thought he would. It was a pretty big relief, actually.
 
Grandfather died 2 days ago at 3pm 🙁.

He had a stroke but I thought he would recover. His condition was improving for 2 days then his conditioned started to decline every day after that 🙁. He had a blood clot in his brain and the Dr's couldn't operate and he was terminal.

Saw him in hospital struggling to breath and was not concious or able to move himself. He made one arm movement the day I saw him. It was sad to see him like that.

Saw him on his death bed. Was very pale and just a surreal feeling.

I'm alright now but seeing him like that was sad and moving.

1st death in my family and 1st one I experienced. He was 79yrs old.

Koing
 
A friend of mine and my gf's best friend died of complications related to lupus a 99 days ago. She went into cardiac arrest and was comatose for 3 days. Then she came around and was awake for 2 days. But they thought she had some internal bleeding, so they tried to transport her to UPenn. She went into cardiac arrest again before they made it out of the parking lot. They got her stabilized and flew her to UPenn the next day, but she was already gone. She was 23 years old.

Sadly, we had to ARGUE with the neurologist to let her "live" overnight so that her friends could come say goodbye.

The second time she went into cardiac arrest, I was not optimistic that she would survive, so I had already mentally prepared myself. Nonetheless, staying that night in the hospital waiting for them to either pull the plug or for her to go on her own was one of the longest nights of my life.

I'm not sure what was harder - watching my friend die, or seeing my gf in so much anguish. Tanitha's misery is over. My gf's sorrow lives on...
In my mind, it's doubly tragic that she was killed by her own immune system.

How I dealt with it? I mostly set my sights on just being there for my gf and trying to ease her pain.

BTW, I only know it's 99 days ago b/c tomorrow is day 100. She was Buddhist and there is a ritual at the temple on day 100 that I'm going to attend 😉

Final note:
Those of you in the Philadelphia Area, there is going to be a Broadway Revue staged in Tanitha's honor in King Of Prussia on 9/27/03. In the months prior to her death, Tanitha worked backstage with 2 community theater groups. In fact, that's how I got to know her.
The event will take place at Upper Merion Area High School in King Of Prussia, PA. Proceeds will benefit the Lupus foundation.
More information will probably be available at http://www.kofpplayers.org
 
My friend's mother passed away yesterday morning.

She battled cancer for years, and lost the fight yesterday when the cancer made its way into her brain.

I arrived a few hours after she died, and cried... she was a kind woman, single mother, and left two children... my 17-year-old friend, and her 19-year-old brother.

The tears were off and on... everyone was in the hospital room, and occasionally someone would make a joke to relieve the sadness... she was a happy woman, and I'm sure she'd want everyone to be happy too.

The wake is this Friday, the funeral this Saturday.
 
I've seen death a few times, but the one that impacted me the most was the death of my mother when I was a sophmore in college. I still miss her.

She died the day before Thanksgiving that year of a lethal cardiac arrythmia.
 
I've had several friends die untimely deaths from the time I was about 7 years old through about 18 years old. My grandparents also died before I was 18 but that's not quite as traumatic as when friends your age get killed.

 
My first real brush with mortality was when I was in HS. A guy in my French class hanged himself on the swingset in the local park. I was sad, but not devastated. I didn't really know him that well.

The worst death I've experienced was my best friend, Shaman. He and I were very close, and we dated for a while. My mother called me at about 5 am one morning, and she sounded upset. She asked me what Shaman's full name was, and I asked her why. She said, "He's in the obituaries." I dropped the phone out of pure shock. I called his mom to confirm it, and she broke down and went into hysterics. He'd stuck the barrel of a revolver in his mouth and blown the top of his head off, 2 weeks before his 23rd birthday. The funeral was open-casket. I was the only friend of his that went to the funeral. The rest of the people there were his family. I couldn't bring myself to go to the burial. It still hurts to think about it, even though it's been 6 years.

My great-uncle Carl died shortly after Shaman. He, too, had killed himself, but it was because he was hooked on drugs and desperate. I don't really remember him very well.

My grandma's 2nd husband, Smiley, died not even a year after they'd gotten married, on my dad's birthday. He had stomach cancer. He was cremated and his hunting buddies took his ashes up to where they used to hunt and sprinkled him there. This year, 5 years to the day that Smiley died, my grandma's pregnant llama had her baby. I wonder if she'll name it Smiley...

My stepdad's dad killed himself right before Thanksgiving last year. He had Parkinson's Disease, and decided that he wanted to go out on his own terms. His disease had progressed to the point where he couldn't do things for himself anymore, like brush his teeth or put clothes on. It must have taken every ounce of strength he'd had left to get up, find the gun, and shoot himself. He was the bravest man I ever knew.

In February of this year, one of the RA's at school, Marie, was driving to her hometown for the weekend, hit an icy patch on the road, and lost control of her car. She was hit by the car behind her, spun around, and then hit again by the car directly behind the first one. She died instantly. I miss her. She was the TA for my anatomy lecture, and she had just been hired as the Senior Floor RA for the next year.

In May of this year, another person at school died. He killed himself in his dorm room. I didn't know him at all, but it was still scary, since we'd just gotten through Marie's death.

In June, one of my parents' friends died of a heart attack. He and his wife had gotten married with my parents at the same chapel, on the same day. He was an avid motorcyclist. I told my mom that "he's probably gone up to that big Sturgis Rally in the sky."

Death is a part of life. It's nothing to be afraid of. When I die, I don't want people to be sad that I'm gone. I want people to remember what I've accomplished in life, and throw a HUGE party with loud music, cake, and strippers, because you can't spell funeral without "FUN"!
 
My mother died of cancer in February. If you do a search you can find my post. It's the most unimaginable pain, and what makes it even worse is seeing my father alone. I've never felt such pain for anyone else like this before. But I deal with it by being a pragmatic, realistic person. I understand that death is a necessary part of life, that I cannot be immune to it forever, and that is comforting to me. And I also feel a sense of relief. You don't know how dreadful it is to absolutely loathe answering the phone, or checking email, because there's a good chance that it will be more bad news about her condition (it always was). Sometimes I could just feel it before the email would even download. Not having that pain, and her not being in pain, is also helpful in the healing process.

I'm lucky that I got to tell my mother that I loved her before she died. Some people are not so lucky: I actually made a trip just today to go to a viewing tonight - a good friend's father died in his sleep on Sunday. I think the suddenness of something like that would be much worse.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top