Death of an acquaintence...

[Flit]

Originally posted by JB73
yeah.. when my mother passed, i was thrown into a huge bout of depression. i was 29 and she died on her 55th birthday with no warning. that was like the king of all slaps to the face about death. now, am i numb to it or something? i dont know.

 No, your not numb.
  You just have become a little more use to the pain. That's not a bad thing, just a natural reaction.
 In '81, I lost the best friend I'd ever had. I let him ride my new (10 day old ) motorcycle to the store with my little brother.
  They wrecked, hit a tree, killed him, almost killed my little brother. (wear your helmet bike riders)
   That was the last time I cried for a long time.
  I lost my Mother in '86 to lung cancer.( She was 54) Not a tear.
 Did'nt cry when my grandad died.Or either of my grandmom's.
 Or when my Father died  3 years ? ago.(Thats pretty bad, not remembering how long ago my Father died)
  Then about 2 months ago (april 24), a good friend smacked his '67 dart into a tree at 80 mph.I cried for the second time in more then 20 years.
 Sorry for your loss

[Lazerus]

73, I know what you're talking about. I'm the same way. I go the next step and distance myself from anyone that I know will die in the near future.

The fear of loss, especially the loss of a loved one, can cause odd behavior.

[TrueKill]

Back in Sep. 2001 I lost one of my friends. He was walking across a street when a guy hit him while speeding. The car hit him and pushed him headfirst into a cirb. They had to lifeflight him to memorial hospital where his mother works. After three surgeries to reduce swelling in his brain he was takin off lifesupport. He was 19. I talked to him the day before this happened and I talked watermelon to him I feel really bad about that. Thats the only time I cryed after someone died even as I type this I get tears in my eyes. What rally sad about it was he was pushing one of his friends that is in a wheelchiar when this happens and he said that instead of jumping outa the way he pushed him outa the way and got hit.

[JB66]

73,  I am truly sorry to hear of the loss of your aquaintance.  One thing that was mentioned is that you now have a sense of mortality.  The one thing that is certain in all life is Death.  Those who beleive in a higher plane of exsistance (God) believe that life is continuious.

My family had a family friend whom years later I found out my brother was sleeping with (kind of the Mrs. Robinsen thing).  And she passed away suddenly.  My brother never really came to terms with her death until years later.  Greif is one of the hardest emotions to explain, there are so many things that have to be taken into account.  

As you have found out with the loss of you mother, you never really get over it.  It still hurts.  But you do learn to live with the acceptance that someone you loved or cared for is gone.  
 There have been several  times I've found myself saying that God will have alot of explaining to do when we meet.  For whatever reason.

[JB73]

Originally posted by Lazerus
73, I know what you're talking about. I'm the same way. I go the next step and distance myself from anyone that I know will die in the near future.

The fear of loss, especially the loss of a loved one, can cause odd behavior.

this is kind of what i am feeling....

thank you all for the thoughts. like i said she was an "acquaintence" and not really close, but close enough to know what her favorite movie was and stuff. kind of hard to explain.

here's where it gets really weird for me personally.

as some of you know, and what i stated in this thread, my mother dies suddenly. i was still living at home at the time with her and my step father because of financial and health problems.

this was july 27 2002 that she passed.


recently my step father has been "dating" a woman he knows. he used to work with her husband, and he died like 10 years ago. my step father loved my mother, and was a great step father. he is a very strong Christian, and lives a good life. we are not on bad terms at all, unlike many people who have a bad relationship with their step-parent.

he recently (a month ago) announced he planned to marry this woman next year.

i was not really comfortable with this, but he is his own person. and i have no right to dictate what he does in life (oh yeah he is retired and 62)

anyway, i find out last week, she has some type of cancer (a pretty bad one too i forget which). turns out she survived a bout with cancer 10 years ago, i think colon also. now she is going through chemo, and i am unsure where to be on this.

i have not discussed with my step dad what their plans are, or anything like that, mostly because i avoid the topic.

now i do not wish harm, or any bad things on anyone, but at the same time, i am not truly sad about this. the messed up part is she is probably going to die. my step dad will have lost another companian, and if something hurts him, it hurts me.

with that, and this recent passing all i am thinking about is the rest of my family. my mother was the youngest, and i have aunts in thier late 70's still going strong. my father's parents are both still alive and quite active, though i barely see them (they live in arizona).

i have ALOT of people who are bound to pass soon. the love and sympathy poured out at my mothers passing was enormous. we had over 500 at the fueneral here alone, another 100 in upper michigan where she was burried.

i guess i am worried i do not have the emotional strength to "give" as much as everyone did for my mother, and with at least 20 people i know that will most likely die in the next 10 years how much can i give? i feel bad thinking about this, but it racks my brain. i don't want to be looked at like an unsensitive ass, not pouring my heart out for the lost loved one... but i dont know i can do that as much as expected.



oh well, thanks for lending the ear, i guess i just needed to get that said. all thank you.

[Seagoon]

JB,

A couple of things that may, I hope, help in considering your step-father's decision to marry.  

First, consider the sickest person you know, and then consider that you have no guarantee that you will live longer than that person.

Even as I type this, a vessel in my brain might be swelling to rupture point, or one of the arteries in my heart might be about to receive the final few deposits that will cause it to become terminally obstructed. I could finish this email and go home for lunch only to be fatally T-boned at one of the many intersections I pass through on the way home.

We tend to live our lives as if we will go on indefinitely, when in fact none of us know how long we will live and how soon it might be before it is no longer us lamenting the passing of others, but our own passing that it is being lamented. It just may be that this woman outlives either you or your stepfather.

Secondly, sometimes a decision like this one, though admittedly not pragmatic, is a source of great blessing.

The Christian author C.S. Lewis spent most of his life as a confirmed batchelor. Late in life however, he struck up a quirky relationship with Joy Davidman, an American lady who had converted to Christianity and had two children from a previous marriage. They went through two marriage ceremonies, the first was an initial civil wedding that had more to do with immigration status. The second however was done by a minister at Joy's hospital bedside after the two had fallen in love. Joy had been diagnosed with cancer then thought to be terminal. Some would have said this was a stupid decision indeed, why marry someone so certain to die? A little while after their marriage ceremony Joy's cancer miraculously went into remission and they were able to enjoy a normal married life and great joy together for several years. Lewis himself wrote that he was amazed that  God had allowed the forgotten dreams of married bliss that he had when he was a young man to be fulfilled at the age of 60.

However, after a few all-too-brief years of happiness, Joy's cancer came back with a vengeance and after several months of terrible pain, she passed away in 1960. Lewis wrote about this ordeal in his book "A Grief Observed."

But did he make the wrong decision in marrying the woman he loved, knowing full well the pain of loss he was about to go through? No. Lewis lived out his life following his conversion (he converted to Christianity in adulthood) keeping the eternal in view and understanding that we are not sovereign over this life of ours. As it happened, Lewis himself only outlived his wife by three years so their separation was ultimately a brief one.
   
Consider well what the apostle James counseled: "Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit"; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.' " (James 4:13-15)

So let us live each day as if it were our last, and that in the next moment we might be called home to the final assize.

- SEAGOON

[Vulcan]

Originally posted by Seagoon
Serious question Vulcan, have you and your wife considered adopting her?

If that is impossible, I know of several childless couples here in the USA who would love to become her parents.

- SEAGOON

Yes, however it would be difficult as in the last few years NZ Immigration has got a lot harder, and right now I cannot afford another mouth to feed. There are also a lot of responsibilities with this sort of thing. We don't know where her brother is (younger), and he will turn up, the father may jump back into the picture at anytime.

Anyway, heres the picture:

[StSanta]

JB, I've asked the same questions myself. I'm not sure there is any one answer. Although not a religious person myself, I tend to think an amount of faith is healthy in dealing with these big questions.

Seagoon said it well - death temporarily remove us from the illusions we live so comfortably in. How things are and should be. What's important. Need to get that job, wonder if she likes me.

Then, for a little time, it becomes glaringly obvious how wrong all our priorities are. How miniscule they are compared to greater things that we mostly manage to comfortably ignore.

There's an experienced dude at my dropzone. Immediately after a friend of mine was killed in a landing accident this easter, thi fellow walked in, put down his canopy, looked everyone in the eyes and said:

It's part of the game..

And that is the truth of it. Everything that lives will die. We exist between eternities. An eternitiy before us, a brief very short moment of life, then an eternity after us.

What matters is not the eternities, but rather what is done in the brief time we're given.

So: full speed ahead, damn the torpedoes. Live well, live fully and now that you have awoken and shed the illusions; remember the lesson and live better, not worse, for it.