Death

I don’t know what is worse: watching someone slowly dying and know there’s nothing you can do, losing a loved one suddenly, or being unable to be there for someone that you know is dying. I have been in the unenviable position of having experienced each of these and yet, I still don’t know.

I lost my grandmother in 1999. She was the one that I knew was dying, yet I couldn’t be there. That was hard because it was the first family member that I had been close to that had passed. What’s worse is I have since found out that I wasn’t as close to her as I had thought. There were so many things that I have found out since that makes me wonder if I ever really knew her at all. And now, eight years later, I still find myself unable to forgive her. I wonder if I ever will. I hope I can, but I am just unable to right now.

I have lost two important people suddenly. When I was about eight, I lost my best friend to a drunk driver. That was really my first experience with death. My father’s mother had died when I was five, but I was left with my maternal grandmother while my parents went to the funeral. The other person that I lost suddenly, was ironically enough, also lost to a drunk…on a horse. That was my brother. His death still hurts. It is still fresh after almost four years. The thought of him can bring me to tears in seconds. I regret that I never got to say goodbye or I love you or tell him how important he was to me.

The last one is always in my mind. It is hard to watch someone you love slowly dying or slowly killing themselves whether it is through inaction or on purpose. Actually, I change my mind; this is the worst way to lose someone. You sit by knowing there’s nothing you can say or do that will change what is happening. No matter how much you want to help them, they have to want to change. So you sit and you wait for the inevitable. And you mourn before the actual death comes. And at some point, you wish that it would all be over with because you find it morbid and stifling to sit and wait for a death that you know is coming. At some point, you pray for it to be over quickly, for your loved one to not suffer any longer.

You can tell whether a death was sudden by the way the main care taker acts at the funeral. If it was sudden, chances are, the grief will be strong and clear. If it was a long, slow death, the grief will not show as much. There may be a sense of relief instead. Relief that the waiting game is over. That is the saddest thing indeed.