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When you lose someone close to you...how long does it take for it to hit you?

L

leeland

Diamond Member
Was given the terrible news this week (Monday) that one of my best friends died in his sleep...only 40.

At first it didn't seem real...and it was only at his funeral that it really started to sink in and bother the shit out of me...

Even seeing him at his wake didn't shake me up that much.

My wife and other close friends were affected right away...crying and remorseful...mostly females.

IDK, maybe it is just me, being a guy and not letting the feeling sink it that it took this long for it to hit me.

I have browsed many threads like this on ATOT without a second thought as to letting it sink in...but man now that it has happened to me it hit home on many levels.

To add a level of oddity...he had an identical twin (never met him until today)....spitting image of him...talk about a mind fuck seeing what looks like your best friend talking to you, while your actual friend is laying in a coffin right next to you. It was extremely comforting yet terribly sad at the same time...like I didn't want to stop talking to him but was sad doing it.

In a selfish way I am pissed at him lol, usually talked to him several times a week...subconsciously I was going to give him a call out of habit after work and had to catch myself...just such a hollow feeling.

Anyways, I was just curious how others viewed this situation if you had ever been in it before.
 
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It took several weeks for my mom's death to hit me. It probably would have taken longer, but my girlfriend at the time kinda coaxed it out of me.
 
leeland said:
To add a level of oddity...he had an identical twin (never met him until today)....spitting image of him...talk about a mind fuck seeing what looks like your best friend talking to you, while your actual friend is laying in a coffin right next to you. It was extremely comforting yet terribly sad at the same time...like I didn't want to stop talking to him but was sad doing it.
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That would seriously mess me up, I'd probably try to purposely avoid him.
 
RossMAN said:
That would seriously mess me up, I'd probably try to purposely avoid him.
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I kept my distance at first simply because I couldn't process it...but talking to him brought some level of comfort since he had so much like his brother....it was in weird way like being able to talk to him one last time.

All in all it was a good thing but a total mind bender!
 
Oddly enough I don't believe Egypt really has any rivers.

DABDA pretty much stands for:

Dental: Make sure you take care of your chompers because if you don't bad things can happen, like being mistaken for an Englishman.

Anger: I hope my vengeful personal deity unleashes his wrath upon those who don't believe the things I do like erecting alters in the name of invisible beings that demand attention, don't do anything detectable but are capable of doing everything.

Bereavement: This pretty much means I'm sad the heathens don't get how awesome my deity and I are.

Depression: I fight this with humor so it doesn't exist. Hey everyone has their own way of dealing with things don't judge! Unless you are Judge Judy, then you can judge but don't yell at me! I didn't know I needed papers for vinegar!

Acceptance: This is when you just have to accept that we are just primates in the advanced stages of thinking we know things we actually don't...maybe. I'm not really sure...or am I, but just don't know it yet? Is anyone else confused?

I hope this gave your mind a temporary respite from dealing with things and that you feel at peace soon and remember the good times you and your friend shared and together bestowed upon the world.
 
disappoint said:
Oddly enough I don't believe Egypt really has any rivers.

DABDA pretty much stands for:

Dental: Make sure you take care of your chompers because if you don't bad things can happen, like being mistaken for an Englishman.

Anger: I hope my vengeful personal deity unleashes his wrath upon those who don't believe the things I do like erecting alters in the name of invisible beings that demand attention, don't do anything detectable but are capable of doing everything.

Bereavement: This pretty much means I'm sad the heathens don't get how awesome my deity and I are.

Depression: I fight this with humor so it doesn't exist. Hey everyone has their own way of dealing with things don't judge! Unless you are Judge Judy, then you can judge but don't yell at me! I didn't know I needed papers for vinegar!

Acceptance: This is when you just have to accept that we are just primates in the advanced stages of thinking we know things we actually don't...maybe. I'm not really sure...or am I, but just don't know it yet? Is anyone else confused?

I hope this gave your mind a temporary respite from dealing with things and that you feel at peace soon and remember the good times you and your friend shared and together bestowed upon the world.
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I did LOL at this...especially this part...

Depression: I fight this with humor so it doesn't exist. Hey everyone has their own way of dealing with things don't judge! Unless you are Judge Judy, then you can judge but don't yell at me! I didn't know I needed papers for vinegar!


Hits home. Get in a tense spot, kill it with humor.


Thanks for posting it made me smile.
 
I think each situation would be different. When my dad passed, there was the initial shock, but then I went on autopilot (I was the executor). It hit me like a freight train once I'd finished everything that needed to be done.
 
lost a really good friend 3 years ago....


it hit me the hardest right at first, because he left 2 daughters, and it made me really think about some things, now, like right now because of this thread i'm thinking about him, and it stirs the same feelings all over, but with an element worse, i dont know how his daughters handled it, as besides a few words on facebook with them in the months after it happened, i've had no contact with them..so crazy how life can just erase parts of you, just bam. no more. wish i could i have just one more day with him, talking tech stuff, talking life stuff, he was the same personality archetype as me.
 
When my grandpa died, it didn't really hit me until his funeral, which was about 3-4 days later. Generally, it takes seeing that person dead for you to realize the seriousness of things. Just hearing about it often doesn't do much to me.
 
It is different for everyone. But eventually that kind of loss will catch up to you. Its ok. If it did not we wouldn't be human.

However it affects you is fine and pretty much normal. Just don't fight it when it does. Because that only makes it worse.

Going on 40 myself, the fact that I've had friends and relatives die younger than that scares the shit out of me. Particularly now that I have kids.
 
my favorite uncle died when i was in my teens. he killed himself. he was young, in his 30s. he had been living out in colorado and i hadn't seen him for a very long time. when i heard about it, it was sad news, but i didn't cry or anything. we went to his funeral, and i saw him there in his coffin and it didnt seem real. and i didnt cry then either. probably a week or two later, i was out shoveling snow and it just like, hit me, and i started crying my eyes out. and for a while i was just super sad and would cry any time i thought about it. and then he just slowly became a sad thought. even now when i think about him, it makes me sad.

i'm sorry for your loss OP.
 
The out of the blue deaths without warning take longer because you go through that period of shock.

My brother in-law passed away from cancer recently. He had been struggling for years and was in hospice for several months. We all had time to come to grips that the end would be inevitable. I think we all were done with the harshest part of our grief before he passed.
 
I lost one of my best friends in the line of duty. Talked to him 1 hr before he was shot and killed instantly. At first I was in shock for about a day then the pain and anger would come and go. It's been almost a year now and still feel the effects from it. I can get very angry at times when I think about doing things that we use to do together :-(
 
I lost my best friend when I was a kid. We were swimming in a lake around a small dock area having a blast and then suddenly he was gone. Desperately tried to find him but lake water isn't very see through when you go under and at the time I wasn't a very good swimmer either. Ambulance with a diver got there 15 minutes after we called, by then I had already cried my heart out cause I knew my buddy was gone. They found him a few minutes after going in. Even though I knew there was no way he was alive, it was still incredibly relieving to see him out of the water, even if it was just his body.

To this day I still tear up every now and then when I think about him or when I go visit his grave. I am "over it" as they say, the sadness I experience now is just me missing my friend.
 
Red Storm said:
I lost my best friend when I was a kid. We were swimming in a lake around a small dock area having a blast and then suddenly he was gone. Desperately tried to find him but lake water isn't very see through when you go under and at the time I wasn't a very good swimmer either. Ambulance with a diver got there 15 minutes after we called, by then I had already cried my heart out cause I knew my buddy was gone. They found him a few minutes after going in. Even though I knew there was no way he was alive, it was still incredibly relieving to see him out of the water, even if it was just his body.

To this day I still tear up every now and then when I think about him or when I go visit his grave. I am "over it" as they say, the sadness I experience now is just me missing my friend.
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Man that is a hard one to read...sorry to hear about that.
 
z1ggy said:
When my grandpa died, it didn't really hit me until his funeral, which was about 3-4 days later. Generally, it takes seeing that person dead for you to realize the seriousness of things. Just hearing about it often doesn't do much to me.
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yup. my grandma died.
It didn't hit me till the wake, seeing her body in the coffin 🙁
 
KidNiki1 said:
my favorite uncle died when i was in my teens. he killed himself. he was young, in his 30s. he had been living out in colorado and i hadn't seen him for a very long time. when i heard about it, it was sad news, but i didn't cry or anything. we went to his funeral, and i saw him there in his coffin and it didnt seem real. and i didnt cry then either. probably a week or two later, i was out shoveling snow and it just like, hit me, and i started crying my eyes out. and for a while i was just super sad and would cry any time i thought about it. and then he just slowly became a sad thought. even now when i think about him, it makes me sad.

i'm sorry for your loss OP.
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That's pretty much how it was for me when my grandmother died. She was diagnosed with Leukemia and then was in the hospital and gone within a short amount of time. I was only 11. I remember the day I woke up in the morning and my parents told me she was gone and it didn't really hit me then, or even really at the funeral. I was at school like a week later at lunch, and I realized I had left the lunch I brought from home in the classroom. I went to go tell the teacher and got about 2 words out before it really hit me and I just started bawling my eyes out.
 
JEDI said:
yup. my grandma died.
It didn't hit me till the wake, seeing her body in the coffin 🙁
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I was 12 when my Granddad died, and that thoroughly freaked me out. The whole western funeral just seems ghoulish to me even to this day. I think it being an unexpected death hits me harder.

I've gotten used to seeing people come and go through life. So most deaths don't phase me unless it's a close relative. A close family friend of ours died a couple months ago though. I just remember feeling really weird for the week after that. Sort of like my brain just shut down because it didn't know how to compute it. That kinda scared me a little. It did give me an excuse though to put a stop to some of my vices and start taking better care of my health.
 
When my Dad died a couple months ago, it hit the next day but I was back to normal after that. For other people that have died, I didn't really react, ever but no one else close to me have died.
 
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the moment. then later that week, then months later, then years later. It's just something you will learn to live with.

Grief is a son of a bitch.
 
Red Storm said:
I lost my best friend when I was a kid. We were swimming in a lake around a small dock area having a blast and then suddenly he was gone. Desperately tried to find him but lake water isn't very see through when you go under and at the time I wasn't a very good swimmer either. Ambulance with a diver got there 15 minutes after we called, by then I had already cried my heart out cause I knew my buddy was gone. They found him a few minutes after going in. Even though I knew there was no way he was alive, it was still incredibly relieving to see him out of the water, even if it was just his body.

To this day I still tear up every now and then when I think about him or when I go visit his grave. I am "over it" as they say, the sadness I experience now is just me missing my friend.
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holy shit. 🙁

did anyone ever determine what happened to him?
 
it hits you when you the reality of whats gone and what cannot be undone crosses path with how much you really cared. you get over it when you can truly accept that.
 
A friend of mine lost his 14 year old son almost 2 years ago. I don't think you ever get over something like that.

What he has gone through and is still going through is a horrific nightmare.
 
Great Great Grandmother died when I was 10... I was watching cartoons on TV when my dad walked in to tell me and my sister. I kind of just thought about it for a few minutes and then started crying not understanding WHY I was crying... it was weird.

My Grandfather died when I was 17. I wasn't that close to him, but he'd been dying for a little over a year. He was on dialysis and they decided to take him off so it was expected. When I found out, I was swimming at the pool with the rest of my cousins and felt sad, but didn't feel the need to cry. Two days later, I friend of mine asked me how I was taking it and I thought about it for a minute and then just broke down crying... it was awkward, but I just felt like I had to let something out. I wish I'd gotten to know him better.

My cousin died in Iraq. I was two months after I'd signed my enlistment contract. I was pretty close to him and have a ton of memories growing up with him. He was the oldest of all the cousins and a bit of a rebel but I had a n awesome time around him. I got the call in the middle of church and as soon as my mom said he died, I felt the life just rush out of my body and fell to my knees. That was probably the hardest thing I've had to hear to this day. He died after being hit by an IED literally 8 hours after his son (first child) was born in the states. He got to hear him over satellite phone for about 30 seconds before he went out on patrol. As one of the drivers in the procession for his funeral, I just could not keep it together and had my sister drive for me. He was from a smallish town in Georgia and I swear it was like a celebrity died with all the people lining the streets, the flags, the motorcycle procession, the fire department setting up a huge flag at the entrance of the cemetery... i was a complete mess. I have his funeral and procession video on a DVD but I haven't been able to watch it since the actual funeral. It just sits there in its jacket. I'm sure I'll bring it out when my kids are old enough to understand.
 
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