Sunday, January 11, 2009
Mortality Mentality
Who was the first person in your life to die? This should be someone personally known to you rather than an idolized public figure. How old were you, and what kinds of thoughts did you have at the time? Was it the first time in your life that you'd confronted your own mortality? Did you just accept it as a natural part of life, something you wouldn't have to personally face for many years? Or did you lie awake at night agonizing over what death meant, or felt like? What did you learn from this initial firsthand experience with death?
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I lost my great grandmother when I was ten. And while I was sad, I accepted it as the natural path of life, she was afterall 94 years young. What affected me more was the suicide death of another kid's dad when I was nine. I just couldn't imagine the pain of moving forward without a parent and worse to know that that parent must have been suffering horribly in order to take his own life. More recently, I have lost sleep over the death of one of my son's classmates when he was six years old. As a parent I am still suffering with this family (who I don't know personally). I now spend a lot of time with the dying as a result of my professional life. And many of those deaths affect me personally still. I don't think it really ever gets easier.
ReplyDeleteMy great grandmother when I was 11 or 12. I remember my grandma telling me great grandma would die one day and she would be sad, so I felt sad for her. I ended up being a bit nervous about losing a loved one, as my grandma continued talking about it and I did not want to face loss. Probably was one of my biggest fears as a young adult was my parents crossing. It was and is thought of missing the physical person and not so much the fear of what death means or feels like.
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