Death, Loss, Grief
Jul. 11th, 2015 05:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grimrose_eilwynnWe found out our dog had cancer.
He was a very sweet yellow lab named Wellington. He wasn't very old -- only about ten or so. We found out he had to be put down.
My sister spent lots of time with him and took pictures of them together. Because of her stutter and learning disabilities, she'd had trouble making friends at school, and he had been her closest buddy. He was very quiet, slow, and sleepy, like he was in an enormous amount of pain.
The next day, he was taken to the vet to be put down. We cremated the body and put the ashes into little gold heart necklaces.
It took our family a long time to move on from that. (We eventually gained another dog, and took in a starving stray cat who kept following us home.) I remember, in the aftermath, feeling very strangely. I kept waiting for rain to pour from the sky, for the world to end.
But it didn't. Things just carried on as normal, and it left me numb.
The same thing happened when my grandfather passed away. He was sitting in his armchair one afternoon and he just stopped breathing. His heart just quit on him. Death was almost instantaneous.
This loss was very sudden -- we hadn't been expecting him to pass away. Everyone seemed terribly upset, and yet again I didn't know how to feel. The numbness had returned -- the feeling that the world was normal, and it was hard to process that this terrible thing had happened.
My grandfather was buried in a quiet green graveyard which carried its own pond. The land was peaceful and pretty; ducks flew over the area. He was buried next to a little blonde girl who had died when she was three years old. Death doesn't discriminate. I was sitting in the back row at his funeral -- there were only two rows, it was a rather small one -- and I watched people come up in turns and talk about my grandfather, wearing black.
His sister was nearly inconsolable. She was crying and had to be supported as she came up to talk about her brother. He was her older brother and he had always protected her and looked out for her. She kept saying how much she would miss him, and suddenly it hit me that this person was dead. Death -- death hit me. I began crying, sobbing very loudly, for the first time.
I processed death that one time, and then I never cried again.
I was sad, but didn't cry, when my Nana passed away. Her death was expected. She died slowly and painfully in a hospital bed. We went to visit her sometimes, and I made sure to let her know how much I loved her.
"I know, darlin'," she said, tired and distant. She was ready to go by the time she passed.
If I could describe death, I would describe it as heavy. Death is exhausting -- at least for the bereaved, if not for the person who is dead. I'm not much of a cryer, so death is hard for me. I'm too stoical to express much of the distressed emotion that so many other women do. This is not a positive -- expressing emotion is our first step in getting rid of it.
But I can't do that. I try to cry, and no tears will come. There's only the heaviness -- the inexpressible, indescribable heaviness.
He was a very sweet yellow lab named Wellington. He wasn't very old -- only about ten or so. We found out he had to be put down.
My sister spent lots of time with him and took pictures of them together. Because of her stutter and learning disabilities, she'd had trouble making friends at school, and he had been her closest buddy. He was very quiet, slow, and sleepy, like he was in an enormous amount of pain.
The next day, he was taken to the vet to be put down. We cremated the body and put the ashes into little gold heart necklaces.
It took our family a long time to move on from that. (We eventually gained another dog, and took in a starving stray cat who kept following us home.) I remember, in the aftermath, feeling very strangely. I kept waiting for rain to pour from the sky, for the world to end.
But it didn't. Things just carried on as normal, and it left me numb.
The same thing happened when my grandfather passed away. He was sitting in his armchair one afternoon and he just stopped breathing. His heart just quit on him. Death was almost instantaneous.
This loss was very sudden -- we hadn't been expecting him to pass away. Everyone seemed terribly upset, and yet again I didn't know how to feel. The numbness had returned -- the feeling that the world was normal, and it was hard to process that this terrible thing had happened.
My grandfather was buried in a quiet green graveyard which carried its own pond. The land was peaceful and pretty; ducks flew over the area. He was buried next to a little blonde girl who had died when she was three years old. Death doesn't discriminate. I was sitting in the back row at his funeral -- there were only two rows, it was a rather small one -- and I watched people come up in turns and talk about my grandfather, wearing black.
His sister was nearly inconsolable. She was crying and had to be supported as she came up to talk about her brother. He was her older brother and he had always protected her and looked out for her. She kept saying how much she would miss him, and suddenly it hit me that this person was dead. Death -- death hit me. I began crying, sobbing very loudly, for the first time.
I processed death that one time, and then I never cried again.
I was sad, but didn't cry, when my Nana passed away. Her death was expected. She died slowly and painfully in a hospital bed. We went to visit her sometimes, and I made sure to let her know how much I loved her.
"I know, darlin'," she said, tired and distant. She was ready to go by the time she passed.
If I could describe death, I would describe it as heavy. Death is exhausting -- at least for the bereaved, if not for the person who is dead. I'm not much of a cryer, so death is hard for me. I'm too stoical to express much of the distressed emotion that so many other women do. This is not a positive -- expressing emotion is our first step in getting rid of it.
But I can't do that. I try to cry, and no tears will come. There's only the heaviness -- the inexpressible, indescribable heaviness.
