Losing Someone Special Or Close

T

Tetsuri Tokai

Guest
Original poster
Its sad to see someone that we care about pass away. We cry for them, we mourn for them, but all the tears in the world cannot bring them back. Its so hard to see the people you care about go, after seeing them for so long. Sometimes, we often cannot handle it and go into depressive states. Some of us manage to grow strong and move forward, while others still try to find ways to get over it.


sadness.jpgHow do you deal with losing someone close to you?
How does it make you feel knowing this?
What ways do you help yourself be strong?

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Losing someone is always tough. Even when it's not someone you're close to, it can be difficult to process that loss of life.

In January, my grandmother died of pancreatic cancer. She had been sick for seven months, and it was very painful and scary the whole time. Towards the end, she became very thin, jaundiced, and lethargic. But she still smiled and fought every step of the way. I knew it was coming, but I was still heartbroken when she passed.

The January before, I lost my very dear friend. I grew up with him, and he was more like family than a mere friend; I considered him a cousin, more or less. Perhaps more, since I saw him more than my blood cousins. He was far too young, and I still don't understand the why of it. It was a very difficult experience for me, and sometimes I forget that he's really gone.

The things that help me? The ways by which I don't let it bog me down? I remember that my grandmother lived to see her 81st birthday, and that she had a loving family around her, all of whom were proud of her. I remember that she was in a lot of pain, and that I am glad she doesn't have to suffer any more or lose any more dignity. And my friend... A few months after his funeral, I had a dream. In my dream, he and I were arguing, and he stormed out of the building. Suddenly I felt panicked and ran after him. It was raining, and there was a black car pulled up to the curb; he was about to get into the passenger side. I called out to him to wait, and he turned to me and smiled. He hugged me and told me it would be alright, and I awoke feeling better than I had since the day I came home to hear the news. It isn't rational, but it healed my wounds.

It's never easy, but the main thing to remember is to remember them. They were part of our lives, and we shouldn't forget that... but we also shouldn't break ourselves trying to resurrect what we cannot. We can never bring them back, but they're part of us, large or small, and that can't be taken away.
 
When I was 12, I lost my grandmother to Liver cancer and a rare tumor. It started out with just the tumor, it was lodged within some veins and arteries so it couldn't be operated on. We were really close, and did a lot of stuff together. Even as she was nearing the end, she was a trooper. It took me throughout all of my highschool years to settle down from the loss and move on.

What keeps me strong is to realize that she's not in pain any more. She lived a good life, had a good fight, and accomlished the one thing she wanted to accomplish before dying. I look at that, and I try my hardest to knock down all my goals that I can and make myself worth something and even [if its possible] make her proud through what I can do.
 
Woah boy.

Loss is a hard, hard thing to go through. It's unexpected, unfair, and maddening at times. I believe people take loss in completely different ways, some ways where even they themselves don't know their doing. For example, similar to Ozzie, I lost my Great-Grandmother two years ago in December. She wanted to see me on Christmas and was hoping I'd visit her in Mississippi. She died 3 weeks before that point.

When I found out, I went into a state of semi-traumatic shock. I was dull, blank, and placid. When my little brother called me at 5 that morning it was more of me mumbling "Oh. Okay. Alright. Oh." and not a single tear was shed. Even when I was on her way to her funeral that same weekend, there wasnt one sad thing for me to do. I was all out blank.

It wasn't until the actual funeral that all emotions ransacked me at once. I was pissed. I was pissed that she could no longer answer my questions and make fun of my freckles and the latter. I cried and I was mad. Handling that loss was horrible. Even after the funeral when everyone was celebrating and eating food and the lot, I could not stand any of the people around me. How could they be enjoying this day? We just lost Momo! My aunt was the one who made me realize that loss affects us all in different ways. It could constrict, sooth, injure, and a lot of other things.

Things that help me is thinking about them beside me everyday. Like, if I go to the fridge to drink milk out of the carton, I can hear my Uncle Henry go, "Ah ah ah! Now, you know better!" Things of that nature just make me smile with a present reminiscent. Like Ozzie said, we shouldnt wreck ourselves hoping and wishing they'd return to be there. We have to go with the flow of life. I mean, thats what they did, you know? In memory and in spirit, they havent really gone anywhere.
 
Yikes...Well recently I have had a lot of experience with losing someone I loved and cared for.

In the past few years I have lost my principle, my mum's best friend, my cousin, my cat, and my uncle. I lost my principle, who was a really great guy and he was really nice, to something no one really could have prevented. I lost my Mum's best friend, and sort of my second Mum or Aunt, to a brain aneurism suddenly one day. I lost my cousin due to a jealous ex boyfriend who shot an killed her. I lost my cat to a disease that wasn't curable and I wasn't there for her and I couldn't even bury her. Finally, I lost my Uncle who I was really close to when I was younger. He didn't die, but he is a paranoid schizophrenic who attempted to kill my family and so he is now no longer a part of anything and he is dead in everyone else's eyes.

I'm honestly hardly over any of them, just my principle's death because he wasn't a part of my family, but I do still feel sad about it because of his family. I've tried to deal with the pain when my Mum's friend died, but I felt I needed to be strong for the rest of my family because I saw my Mum cry and I hadn't seen her cry since I was about 3 or 4 and that was due to my asshole of a father. I felt like I needed to be there for her and my sister and my brother because I was the oldest, I was second in line to take responsibility and since my Mum wasn't in any condition to help us, I helped my brother and sister and her. The same happened when my cousin was murdered. My brother was the closest to her, being in her grade and talking up until the day before she was shot, and seeing him crying at her funeral broke my soul. It honestly did. He was the strongest out of all of us and only once have I seen him cry with that much hate and sadness. It honestly haunts me still to this day and when I think about it, I feel like crying. She would have graduated with my brother this year if she hadn't have been murdered in 2010, so it was a bittersweet grad for us. When my cat died, I was broken. It was the one and only death that would mostly effect me. I hated it. I wasn't even there to be with her when they had to put her down. I couldn't even bury her because the disease had to be destroyed, so she was cremated. The only things I have let of her are her collars. The very first one I ever gave her, the one she wore the most, and the one I gave her for Christmas that she only got to wear for not even a month and was the last one she ever was able to wear. I was even doubting both my Mum's and the vet's decision, thinking that maybe something else was wrong, something treatable, but when I looked up the disease she had for myself, I knew that was what she had because of the symptoms and how she acted. I know what some people say "How can animal deaths be so traumatic?", well my kitty was my kitty, I had her since she was a kitten and I was a kid myself and I loved her even more than my boyfriend. She was honestly always there for me, purring to make me feel better when I was sad or trying to distract me from studying by laying on my books so I could pet her. I loved her, and even though we have two kittens, no other cat is ever going to replace her.

Anyways, after that Mitten-rant-of-sorrow, basically all I need is time to get over things, but it takes a long time. In some cases you may never feel the same way again once a person or animal you care about dearly passes away, and other times you are able to get over it. I made a point not to read Osso's post until now, and I fully agree with him as well; remember the good times and remember the old them, those are the times you want to keep in your mind to pass on stories to your kids or friends in later years.
 
I loss my grandparents when I was a kid, but I hardly knew them. I've lost two uncles in the course of my teenage years, but the loss feels so unreal. I almost half expect them to be there when I arrive at their homes, popping up to laugh with me and tell me interesting stories as they always did. At this moment, the loss doesn't feel like loss because perhaps I've gotten over the shock. And also because of my religious beliefs, I have realized that one day, we all must go.

A summer classmate of mine was this cheerful boy from Brooklyn. We didn't know much about each other, but we were friends on the weekends, when we attended a pre-college science program. A few months later, after it was over, when we stopped sending friendly emails to each other, I looked him up on Facebook and saw all of these RIP pages. Apparently, in a fist fight somewhere on the subway, he'd fallen in front of a passing train and died. It was a huge shock to me. Though I didn't know him, he was dead. A guy with a cheerful smile and a kind personality, that's all I ever knew of him and he was gone.

I know that in my life ahead there are going to be more losses. My parents are in their old age, my aunts and uncles are as well. Perhaps I'm not as ached or scarred by loss as everyone else is, but that is a mixture of both personal and spiritual realizations. I expect that death will come unexpectedly and I'm ready to accept that. If someone close to me, as in my best friends or nuclear family passed away, I would probably be wrought with grief.

Still, I want to believe that I will have the strength to move on forward, just like the way those who passed away would want me to.
 
Mines consisted of when my cousin died.

His name was Tory and he loved his family very dearly. The only problem was that he was into drugs. But, he still didn't cause problems for anyone. He always gave to people and he was never selfish. I always would talk to him and he would always joke around with me. More so, he was like a big brother to me. Around the time, I was still in high school. It was on August 22, 2009 I believe. On the day before I had to go back to school on Monday, I remember it like it was yesterday. So many cops and ambulances. I tried my best to get to see him, but they refused to let me see him. Besides, what teen would want to see his family dead anyway, right? That didn't matter, I needed to see him. I only happen to catch a glimpse of his body, but not his face.

It turned out that he had was set up by some of his 'friends' and they shot him to death. I remember going to school and crying my eyes out, even got pissed at a person for constantly questioning me about it.

The way that I was calmed was by my principle. She gave me words of wisdom and I relaxed. Though, it still pained me in my heart to know. The sad part is that it happened in front of my great-grandparents house. So, whenever I pass that spot where the cross is, that day plays in my mind. But, I only smile and say to myself. "He's in a better place now."
 
My only great loss was my cat.

I can't add anything new to what was already said.

All I can say is, that with losses all you can do- and you should do- is to acknowledge it and let those emotions out. Take your time to process it. Don't work, don't study, don't talk to anyone (or talk with everybody if you need to!).

But what one should NOT do is try to shrug it off and ''move on'' instantly. Many do this, many don't let themselves enough time to mourn a death. They try to escape reality; some methods are well known, such as drugs and alcohol and why not videogames in excess, but others are more subtle- and tricky to spot! You see these people talking about how great their lives are because they now work and/or study so much more than before, because they now are really into these seven new tv soaps that are so thrilling, or because they joined this new group of volunteers that rescues beached whales somewhere at 3am every Sunday. Or because they are into eighty roleplays and all excited about it. A little bit too much excited.

But they will not talk about the loss, no, they won't allow themselves to think about that.


That is wrong, and brings bad consecuences afterwards! Your brain needs to process death, this is important! It's a wound that needs to heal and it can only heal consciously.
 
I found out my cat died today; in reality she died several days go but I just found out from my mother. I've been crying off and on since then, and it really hurts because she was still a young cat. Only a year and half old. My mother and I spent several weeks taming her and she turned out to be the sweetest, most lovable cat ever. Never once bit anyone or scratched, and she tolerated my young niece so well and even didn't care how my sister's German Shepherd would sit on her or carry her around by her throat.
 
Everyone has already said many of the things I would have said in relation to this subject, so I'll just point out how I deal with this sort of thing:

I haven't lost someone super close to me (besides pets) yet, but I have lost friends and relatives. I'm not capable of feeling a lot of sorrow. I try to be sad, but it's more of a forcing myself to cry and convincing myself that it is sad. Sometimes it is sad, so I can recognize that and cry, but my logic tends to beat me over the head: they are gone. There is nothing I can do for them now but to show that I loved them and to honor them. It's good to let your emotions out, and just stop everything for awhile so you can think, reflect on what you feel, so that the pressure doesn't build until you burst. However, I could not picture myself mourning so seriously for much more than a few days. I would probably feel upset for a long time, but I would go back to my normal schedule very quickly.
 
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