Accustomed to Normality.

Well I repped you my condolences and I will say it again, I am very sorry for your loss.

I have lost my best friend in high school, and three of my grandparents.

Obviously all of those losses hit me differently. Although I have found something out about my self and my ability to cope. I flat out do not cope well.

I'll talk about the best friend because that was the first big "adult" loss I suffered, and my grandparents are still fresh enough that I don't really like talking about the feelings of loss, and instability. (I've lost other people before, but I was so young that I don't feel I was really capable of processing what was going on.) My boy Austin was stabbed to death at an after party for homecoming. I don't know the order of the steps of grieving, but denial seemed to be the one that worked best for me. I made jokes about it, tried to distance myself from it, and buried myself in sports. I would go to football practice (Ignoring his locker that was the locker directly to my left.) And just dump myself on the field. I was kind of a dick to do tackling drills with for a while, and I wasn't really capable of doing anything half speed. After football practice I would go to the wrestling room, and try to catch the last half hour or so of live wrestling and beat on our heavy weight for a while. Then I would go home, do my best not to deal with it in any way, and go to bed. During game weekends there was plenty of distraction with pep rallies, after parties, and the pressure of playing football in Oklahoma. During non game weekends, I drank.

That's not to say I never came face to face with my feelings of loss. They brought grief councilors into our school, and that sucked because I broke down, and I really had to look at all of the guilt I was feeling. (My girl friend and I were his ride to the party, but I left him there because he wanted to stay, and try to get laid, and I had 6 feet of hottness that was visiting from college.) I still carry that guilt with me, there are times when I will get so pissed because there is a fucked up little 17 year old stuck in my head who still feels he let his friend die.

But as others have said, even though it was terrible for a while, it began to become normal. Football became fun again. I could be around my friends and we could tell stupid stories about Austin and laugh. It got to the point where I could go into his room. I even wrote a woefully pretentious poem dedicated to him. I don't know what the turning point was, hell I don't know if there is one, but eventually the pain becomes less demanding, less immediate. It fades to the back ground. I'm not going to say it ever goes away, but like anything you live through, it becomes a manageable part of your life.

 

Death sucks.

I've lost both of my grandparents to various illnesses. My aunt died under mysterious circumstances (which was most likely a crystal meth overdose). One of my students committed suicide by overdosing last April. My mother attempted suicide in April of 2009. The last time I counted the number of people I associated with from high school who had died, the count was at 12. One lost his life to a drunk driver. The rest of them were shot.

My best friend and I were talking about how we've been to more funerals than we care to count and how we were talking about how disheartening it was that the younger guys who came up after us were the ones who were being buried now, as opposed to our immediate circle of friends.

I say all that to say something very cliche: do what you feel is best for you. Everyone grieves differently. The feelings that you feel, whatever you may feel, are what you are supposed to be feeling. Don't guilt yourself or shame yourself for whatever you feel. I tend to face death head on. I stayed with my grandfather by his bedside until he passed and then I planted myself beside my grandmother during my grandfather's funeral. I usually have one good cry - typically on the way to the funeral while I'm traveling alone, and I steel myself for the coming days. I serve as the lynch pin in my family. I am the rock. I typically absorb a lot of the emotion in the room and provide emotional containment for everyone else. This provides me solace.

My mother handles grief horribly. She said that she felt like an orphan when my grandmother died. She usually grieves for a year or two or until something else horrible happens (such as the death of my aunt). If you feel like you're surrounded or stuck in a very dark place for a very long time, I would recommend speaking to a therapist.

 

I just want to reiterate this. See someone who can help you come to terms with what you're going through, not someone who's going to medicate you into a cloud so you don't have to. It's essential that the whatever the fuck it is you're feeling be addressed.

 

eA, very sorry for your loss. it sounds like you are handling it well so far. don't worry if you feel the need to break down days or weeks later. it happens.

my cousin died suddenly, unexpectedly Aug. 27 last year at the age of 36. neither he nor i had a brother so we were as close to brothers as we could be. we both grew up duck hunting, fishing, and loved drag racing. we talked 2-3 times a week, more if it was hunting season. my cousin was a rock star in my family and to all his friends. he ALWAYS had a joke or a quote from a movie and he could deliver it better than most comedians. losing him rocked my family.

i have never been an emotional person except for my temper. i am normally pretty level-headed in most situations. i found my outlet for this was writing also. i don't consider myself a writer, but apparently my family and friends that have had access to my journal and the notes posted on Facebook tell me to please keep doing it. so i have.

i have seen a lot of people referring to the "void" and that's exactly what it is. also, it is learning to adapt to it. it will never be filled or fixed. my heart goes out to you.

my wife (madamsquirrel) linked me to this thread literally minutes after i had written an entry that i was going to post to my journal and my Facebook (i have her proofread it, if for nothing else than for her to tell me if something is just way out there and doesn't make sense) i only post part of it now to show that a year later, that feeling never really goes away.

Spoiler

Think about this for a minute...or two…or longer. Have you ever thought about the same thing, the same subject, or the same person EVERY single day for a year? Aside from your husband/wife/kids/pets that you see every day, and I am including the weekends (that would exclude co-workers from the mix).

That’s what has happened for the past year. Every day…every morning…and especially every workday when I sit at my desk and see my digital picture frame, scrolling through the few pictures that show his face…that show him in action…that shows him doing something that he loved.

It still somehow seems unreal even though I have learned to control the impulse to text or call. It still seems like a bad dream, swirling around, confusing, and then becoming more clear, allowing you to realize that, in fact, he is gone. Yes, some of the sting has faded. But like scar tissue from some injury that has long since healed, it’s still sore. It inhibits your movement when you wake up in the morning. It takes a second or two to get through the initial pain, and then slowly you start to move, still in discomfort, cursing the incident that caused it.

I think we have all gone through the shock…dismay…mourning…regret…anger…and sorrow. I think we have all felt a multitude of emotions at once, not sure which to grab hold of, which one will give the most relief from the previous. All we know is we want to feel better and the plain and simple truth is that there is a part of us that knows we never will.

We have learned to cope. We have learned to manage the pain. We have learned to control our emotions. We have not, nor do I think we will ever, learn to accept it and move on. There are too many memories, too many expectations of things to come, and now, too large a hole to fill.

There are ways we have learned to occupy our time. To let the anticipation of unspoken fishing trips, cook-outs, and hunts that were to come, fade into the realization that they will not happen. There is the camp, which has occupied several weekends of blood, sweat, and plenty of tears. It has turned to a labor of love, something that MUST be done… Rebuilt...To carry on…To endure…To create a legacy to be passed on.
And it will.

When I start to write, I have the best intentions. And I have been told that as a writer (a term I use very loosely) my best work is my emotional work, which I assume is the same for “real” writers out there. And in the course of writing this, I have once again become swept up in memories and daydreams of what might have been, of glorious hunts, great fishing trips, and the slow boat rides back to the camp at sunset, seeing the swirl of a bass, or the lingering flight of wood ducks, diving into some unseen pothole in the swamp to roost for the night. And the inevitable cooking and conversation of how good it was or how we can make it better, with a “tottie” in one hand and the last cigarette for the night in the other.
Those are the things I will miss most.

 

This has been mentioned in passing to varying extents, but it must be emphasized:

Find your support group, and use them.

They're your "team," and you will rely on them frequently, especially initially. Sometimes it may just be a call or a text that you need, sometimes an in-person conversation, sometimes a few beers (as long as alcohol doesn't become your coping mechanism). But whatever it is, don't be ashamed to reach out for help. Don't try to "tough it out" yourself, because you'll only make it worse, not better.

Grieving is not a solitary act, and we are not meant to go through it alone.

 

Where is the drunk thread? Fuck it. I'll put it here.



EDIT: Wow! I just read up. My big brother committed suicide when I was 19. I was the last person in my family to see him alive. Really? I have never been the same since.

EDIT 2: In my experience, when you lose a loved one, time is the only element that lessons the hole that your dad spoke of; and whenever you think of that person in relation to your own personal timeline? It will always be in terms of before that person and after that person.

 

Two edits and you didn't have the sense to pull the video and post it in either the youtube or a music thread? Way to go champ.

 

You didn't need to do that. A little levity can be good sometimes.

The POINT was: In relation to a lost loved one, the hole will ALWAYS be there. Time and experience, like running water over stone, will smooth the loss over. In relation to your own life? When you think of them, it will almost always be before and after that person.

 

Fuck is this thread ever a downer. I have yet to lose someone that I am close to, but there have been many nights where I have layed wake in bed thinking about how a death in my family or circle of friends will shake my world up and leave me unable to cope. I know that this will happen eventually. I think that going through so much of my life without experiencing a major loss will fuck me up pretty good. I remember in high school when there was a car accident involving three girls from my school (2 of which died). Even though I didin't know the girls very well, it still bothered me that I would never see them again, and I still think of them occasionally to this day.