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How do you handle death?

Mixolydian

Mixolydian

Lifer
I've only had one other experience with death so far. I just found out a little while ago that my great aunt (86) passed away suddenly while on a cruise in Canada earlier this week. Totally out of the blue, as she was very healthy and active. While I was never very close with her, as she lived on the other side of the country, she was a wonderful and caring person whom I liked a lot, as did the rest of my family. It's so unexpected, yet at the same time you have to expect it sooner or later, especially when a person gets to be that age.

I'm having a hard time dealing with this. I don't know how to feel at this point. I'm very inexperienced when it comes to death. I'm so confused. :\
 
I haven't shed a tear for any of my family that passed including my dad. Just some confusion like you. Some people are simply wired like this.
 
My father passed away at age 71 about 6 months ago. I focus on the good times we had together. I stay away from any bad thoughts. This way I always come away feeling happy that I had 40 good years with him. Little things remind me of him and it puts a smile on my face. I know I can talk to him any time I want by just looking up. Love ones will always be with you even if you can't see them...
 
Wallow in misery and depression for about two days, depending. Then move on. Don't know if that would work for you, or even if it "works" for me. But that's what I usually go through.
 
How you deal with this may depend on your world view. What I mean by that is, if you are religious, you may take comfort in knowing your aunt is in heaven. If you are a non believer like me, then you can think of your aunt first and put yourself second. Being dead is not an experience. Its the same as it was before she was born. Your aunt only experienced the gift of life and there is no other experience to be had. Even if someone fears death, they are fearing nothing because they will never know what its like to be dead since death is not an experience.
Do your aunt a great service and bring justice to her life by cherishing the good, but never close the door on the past. Instead, use anything negative from the past as experiences that can be used to help others as they go through their own negative experiences. In this way, everything about your aunt, including the negative things, can be used for good. Everything about her is positive in this kind of light because those experiences can benefit others and become a rung in the ladder of life as humanity climbs it together, one step at a time with the valuable experiences of people like you and your aunt.
 
I've had a lot of deaths in my lifetime, and I've always felt like I dealt with them very differently than most of the people around me. Most people really seem to let all their sadness out at the wake and funeral in flamboyant bouts of crying and weeping, but I never really feel the impact of it while all the death related rituals are going on. I have faked the outward signs of emotional distress because I thought it was expected of me during funerals and wakes and such, notably at my own father's funeral. I only really feel the pain while I'm alone later. I usually make myself think about the person and all the memories I have of them when I'm back home and can really focus on it. I think I do it almost to reassure myself that I really do feel something other than performance anxiety at the prospect of a loved one's death. My real grief comes out in little trickles over the months and years following the death though. I'll see something that reminds me of the person and it'll really hurt when I least expect it. Well, at least I know I'm human after all.
 
Fetch a rug. Roll the body up in it. Drive to the boonies and dispose of the body.




More seriously, I don't handle death well at all. I cry copiously. I'm useless at work and at home for a while. Then I mope for months.
 
Mixolydian said:
I've only had one other experience with death so far. I just found out a little while ago that my great aunt (86) passed away suddenly while on a cruise in Canada earlier this week. Totally out of the blue, as she was very healthy and active. While I was never very close with her, as she lived on the other side of the country, she was a wonderful and caring person whom I liked a lot, as did the rest of my family. It's so unexpected, yet at the same time you have to expect it sooner or later, especially when a person gets to be that age.

I'm having a hard time dealing with this. I don't know how to feel at this point. I'm very inexperienced when it comes to death. I'm so confused. :\
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So the ONLY experience you have with death is a great aunt? You must be pretty young?

How about ALL of your grandparents ... then ALL of your parents? After the first 2 or 3 you get more accustomed to your own corporeal existence. Time is the best healer of wounds ...
 
My feeling is that everyone has to die sometime. I'm sad for day or maybe just during the funeral but that's it. As long as they had a good life I'm fine with it.
 
Just part of life. Everyone is born and then eventually dies. I don't believe in the afterlife despite growing in a Roman-catholic family and going church, praying to someone I don't believe existed. I've done some "soul" searching lots of times asking why? Maybe I'm just naive to see any "heavenly" sign if there was indeed an answer even if it was right in front of me. :\

So far just this year 2013.

1. Lost a 51 year old co-worker last June. Hit me hard since he was a nice person, good family and fun to work with.
2.My Brother's wife's sister died from 4th Stage Colon cancer not telling her 2 teenage kids how sick she was. Husband/father knew. late July
3. Co-worker's 93 year old Dad dies. late July.
4. Co-worker's 59 year old wife dies, found dead in kitchen. Early August.

Had the opportunity of going to #1, 3 and 4 wakes but didn't.
 
dud said:
So the ONLY experience you have with death is a great aunt? You must be pretty young?

How about ALL of your grandparents ... then ALL of your parents? After the first 2 or 3 you get more accustomed to your own corporeal existence. Time is the best healer of wounds ...
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No, this makes the 2nd death I've experienced. As for my grandparents, 3 of the 4 died long before I was born, my grandmother is still alive (actually her 93rd birthday was yesterday) and is the sister of said great aunt.

I dunno, I just feel..."weird". I can't describe it. Of course I'm sad, but I'm kind of going on as if nothing happened. Am I a horrible person or something? :hmm:
 
i have no grandparents most recent death was a cpl years ago
ive lost friends to ODs, accidents and suicides
lost an uncle as well

none of it phased me at all

/shrug
 
Mixolydian said:
No, this makes the 2nd death I've experienced. As for my grandparents, 3 of the 4 died long before I was born, my grandmother is still alive (actually her 93rd birthday was yesterday) and is the sister of said great aunt.

I dunno, I just feel..."weird". I can't describe it. Of course I'm sad, but I'm kind of going on as if nothing happened. Am I a horrible person or something? :hmm:
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Nope.
 
Mixolydian said:
No, this makes the 2nd death I've experienced. As for my grandparents, 3 of the 4 died long before I was born, my grandmother is still alive (actually her 93rd birthday was yesterday) and is the sister of said great aunt.

I dunno, I just feel..."weird". I can't describe it. Of course I'm sad, but I'm kind of going on as if nothing happened. Am I a horrible person or something? :hmm:
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One thing I've never understood is why some people worry about how they are supposed to feel. You feel how you feel. Don't worry about it.
 
Usually note the position of the body, age, medical conditions and medication they are taking. Then I contact the coroner and wait for them to show up or wait for a body removal service to come. Write my report and move on.
 
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Mixolydian said:
Because if you don't feel/react the way you're "supposed" to, everyone will think you're a psycho.
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that's complete BS... I have experienced a lot of death in my day (im 34) ->

uncle, mother, grandparents, younger friends/acquaintances due to accidents/suicides, inlaws. Heck in the last year, I had a coworker from my first job out of college die (36 yrs old) from a heart infection. In june my step-brother (dad remarried after my mother died in 2005) committed suicide @ 32. last june, a guy's wife I coached hockey with committed suicide. My uncle and mother both died in their early/mid fifties (heart attack and cancer). all my grandparents are dead, have been dead for 15-20 yrs now...

needless to say, I have had experience with people passing. the biggest thing I have learned is There is no right way to act. You cannot judge or question how some reacts to death. Anyone that does should STFU and figure out why they are so focused on how someone else is reacting rather than their feelings or the person that has passed
 
Zivic said:
that's complete BS... I have experienced a lot of death in my day (im 34) ->

uncle, mother, grandparents, younger friends/acquaintances due to accidents/suicides, inlaws. Heck in the last year, I had a coworker from my first job out of college die (36 yrs old) from a heart infection. In june my step-brother (dad remarried after my mother died in 2005) committed suicide @ 32. last june, a guy's wife I coached hockey with committed suicide. My uncle and mother both died in their early/mid fifties (heart attack and cancer). all my grandparents are dead, have been dead for 15-20 yrs now...

needless to say, I have had experience with people passing. the biggest thing I have learned is There is no right way to act. You cannot judge or question how some reacts to death. Anyone that does should STFU and figure out why they are so focused on how someone else is reacting rather than their feelings or the person that has passed
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well said
 
Mixolydian said:
Because if you don't feel/react the way you're "supposed" to, everyone will think you're a psycho.
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I'm with Anubis. And with Popeye. I yam who I yam. People who don't like it can gft. But I'm old-ish and don't much care what people think of me.
 
I'm still trying to figure that one out myself. It was rough when my mom's little brother passed away, I went with her to Hawaii where he and his family lived for the services. Seeing my mother cry has always disturbed me in a way nothing else does.

This whole topic is currently the thing with my family as I lost my dad a month ago Tuesday. Had to say goodbye and put him in a lake on my birthday (he wanted to be cremated). Still think about him every day. I'm glad he's no longer suffering but the notion of my two young sons growing up and not knowing him, to have no real memory of him when they're grown, it still twists my guts.

I'm lucky though, I have an incredible wife and terrific siblings. I was a useless numb shit back home and they were taking care of business.

To add even more excitement to my summer, 2 days after getting back from all the funeral stuff my father in law almost dies. Got lost in the woods, dehydrated, fell down a embankment and got shredded head to toe by some kind of thorny and unpleasant vegetation. Found by hikers almost unconscious and in renal failure. Flat lined twice once they got him to the hospital. He's recuperated though, and back home thankfully.
 
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Former best friend's brother died in a skiing accident when I was little. I don't know, it kind of opened my eyes to the fact that young people can die (he was ~17 at the time). Realized it was best to celebrate the time we had with them rather than wallow over it, after all, nothing you do will change the fact. Make them proud.
 
Probably different than most. I've seen so much death as an ER nurse. It just doesn't really phase me or register much. I just make sure the charting is solid do any necessary postmortem care and continue on with my shift. I'm not cold or callous about it, I just recognize that for many people death is a release from suffering. Obviously that is not always the case, but many times it is. Even for close family or friends I'm the same way. I choose to celebrate their life and not mourn their death.

In many ways it keeps me throughly grounded and allows me to live a more fulfilling life because I see how fragile life really is. In many ways being around death so much has allowed me to be a more complete and happy person.
 
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