I just had a great talk today with a friend whom recently lost her husband. I would like to share with everyone a little what we discussed. Our discussion not only helped her it also made me think more of my loss as well. I hope that it can help anyone else that reads this. Most Americans has experienced losing someone close to them or knows someone who has. This person may have been a Mother, Father, Daughter, Son, Spouse, etc. A loss hurts us and affects people in many ways. I hope that you enjoy this and please leave a comment or just like it.
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| Our Girls and their friend |
When we lose someone close to us we go through different stages. For example, we may become angry or hurt and often look for someone or something to blame to justify our emotions. Then others may experience moments of depression or guilt, which could lead to someone feeling trapped. An individual's life changes unexpectedly, simple activities become more cumbersome than we planned. We glue ourselves to the bed doing nothing. jWe ust continue to lay in bed, thinking or stressing, over matters that we have no control over. Eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner is less important causing some to eat late or not at all. This is more so when it is someone that had a great impact in our life such as a parent, child, or a spouse. Daily routines change we may trap ourselves in the same home where we shared birthday parties, social gatherings, and family time together. Regardless if it was an immediate death or if it was a long and drawn out death it takes us by surprise. Death is difficult to deal with no matter how a person dies. My wife, (Jana) had diabetes, which eventually ended her life, and was insulin dependent. The morning was like any other morning. We made sure that our girls were up getting ready for school. Jana was not feeling well that day, she said her blood sugar was high., She tried eating a little breakfast. Then asked me if I would drive the girls to school that day. I decided to keep our middle child, (Kayla) home from school that day just in case Jana needed to go to the hospital. Like most people she did not like going to the ER. I asked her, "how she was feeling and do you need to go to the ER. Thirty minutes or so goes by when she said, "that she was feeling better and for me to take Kayla to school. Just to make sure I asked her twice if she was certain. Do you want to wait a little longer? Her response was, "no Kayla needs to go to school because she had a project or field trip that day."
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| Trapped |
The school was approximately a five minute drive from our house. Jana wanted to try eating some soup. I dropped off Kayla then I stopped by the nearest corner store to get Jana soup and diet 7-up. Jana's sister picked up Maleia dropped her off at school so that I could focus on taking care of Jana. The trip took twenty-two minutes round trip. When I return home I began warming up her soup. I called her name, which there was no response. She was tired from the night before; I figured she was taking a nap. It is still hard for me to reminiscent what occurred next. Soup and 7-Up in hand I tried waking my wife and received no response. Immediately I dialed 911 and the rest is history. That remains to be my only regret that I have trouble letting go. In my experience I went through the stage of being mad at myself, Jana, paramedic’s, and the world. I secluded myself from everyone including my daughter constantly thinking to myself. “Why did I not take her to the hospital? I should have made her go to the hospital? We should have waited a little longer?” There was no one that I felt I could to talk to. People always tell me I know what you are going through. That made me angry too and at times I yelled at the person, “How can you tell me that you know what I am going through when I don’t even know?” I felt bad about that later because they were just being sincere. However, nobody could truly understand what I was going through and I was going through it on my own. Sure, people did try to get me out the house, offered prayers, and support. However, it was not enough, it did not help me because nobody could change the events, and I was to blame. I did not want to talk to anyone. I stopped answering my phone and my door which felt great. I had my alcohol and that is all I needed at the time.
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| My World "Maleia" |
Slowly I started answering the door, going out, and answering the phone again because people began to worry about me, my daughter needed her daddy. I hide my feelings,
my emotions, and acted as if everything was o.k. When I was alone at the end of the day I would cry to myself, not answer telephone, and drank until I passed out. I was comfortable being alone with a bottle of alcohol. That is how I found my peace and forgot about reality. When I woke up in the morning I was still alone and angry at myself, the world, and God. I did not want to be mad at my wife. I apologized repeatedly because I was hurt blaming myself. Then I was angry at her because I wanted to take her to the hospital, it was not my fault, and maybe she did it to hurt me. Then it was easier to blame God. We were doing well for ourselves, we had jobs, our bills were paid, took vacations every year and life was good. In addition, he is the creator and is responsible for all living things so why me I asked myself, “What did I do to piss you off”? Of course God never answered me so I turned my back on him. I tried not thinking about it and it only made it worse. It hurt me more which made me angrier, hurt, and depressed constantly. I worked the graveyard shift and Jana worked days. She would be getting ready for work when I came home. When I finally went back to work I did not want to go home after work. I knew the girls would not be up getting ready for school and that Jana would not be getting ready for work. I did not want to be a burden to anyone. I wanted everyone to believe that I was strong and rather than going home or asking for help I would by alcohol and drink it in a parking lot or at a park.
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| My Princess |
My friend is currently going through these stages, as I went through, and other individuals that ever lost a loved one has. It hurts and is difficult to get through alone. I feel that most will never truly heal after losing a love one. We tend to have doubt, insecurities. and many unanswered questions. We say our vows when we marry and expect to grow old with that person after sharing that kiss. The same is true during a child’s birth when they come into our world. We make vows to honor, protect, and love that person till death do us part. We do not make these vows with our children however those vows apply to them as well. I could not understand what losing a child feels like and prays that it never happens. Parents expect their children to bury them and children expect their parents to be there for them growing up. When we get married we expect to grow old with our spouse. There are many reasons why this may never happen for any of us so we all hope and pray that it never does. Whether losing somebody expectantly or with no warning is difficult. We drown ourselves with misery and guilt. We try to continue being strong because there is someone else depending on us. However, it is hard because we have so much guilt, what if’s, and anger none of which is healthy for anyone. It takes awhile to realize these feeling are selfish. We are only thinking of ourselves. Overtime reality hits before we realize that we did not lose our loves ones. They are in a better place and they are not suffering anymore. There is someone counting on us to be there for them.
My daughter was that person for me. She snapped me out of the stage that I was going through. At the time she was five years old and I will never forget when she told me, “daddy as long as I am with you I know that I will be alright”. I did my best without crying and gave her the biggest squeeze that I could because she made perfect sense. That made me realize even if I do not want to continue with life I need to do it for her. That changed my perspective, made me start living a productive life again, and wanting to do right by her because she needed me like I needed her. Maleia did not understand what death was and stated, “Daddy I want to go to heaven so I can see mommy”. Then I realized that I was not suffering alone. Jana was a wife, mother, daughter, sister, and a friend. Anyone who knew her was suffering from her death and it was hard for all of us. It was not fair to compare the relationship that I had her because we all suffered. Nobody can truly understand what an individual meant to them. All we can do is just have an open mind and express our true feeling to anyone that will listen without judgments. Sharing our personal feelings about the person we lost will help us all heal.
I continue to have problems however I am grateful, I am happy again and most importantly I am healing. I am able to have a little understanding of what someone else may be going through by losing Jana. Talking about has done wonders. Letting go of the anger, the guilt, and all the unanswered questions lifted a tremendous amount of weight off my shoulders. There was no one to blame. We all know that dying is a part of life. Once we understand that and we let the anger go we will see the world in a whole new light. We understand that we were only trapping ourselves and hurting anyone that is depending on us. We all lost a loved. Please take my advice by letting these feeling go and let GOD. Take it one day at time and you will get there just as I will some day. If there is no one that you want to talk to try writing down your feeling on paper with a love letter from the heart and always keep in that you are not alone. There is some one else out there going thru or may experience what you are going thru now. God bless you all stop trapping yourself and moved forward. It is what our loved one would want us to do if they could tell us themselves.
