grief
Losing a family member is one of the most traumatic life events; Families must support one another to endure the five stages of grief and get through it together.
Don't Miss Him Til He's Gone
It is real easy to take someone for granted while they are still around. Even though we may take our loved ones for granted, most of the time it isn't intentional. There are plenty of everyday things that seem minor on a regular day, but looking back they could mean the world to someone reflecting back. It's not that you didn't care, it was just the norm. The sad reality is sometimes it takes someone being gone for you to notice and appreciate some of the things they have done for you.
By Kiara Bowens8 years ago in Families
The Sound of Shattering Glass
My problems all started on the day that I found him dead. My then-girlfriend and I came home from vacation. We were up with friends in northern Minnesota, drinking and smoking a weekend away. We arrived to find my father and three of his friends hanging out, having just finished their fantasy draft. We all exchanged pleasantries. Lady and I went to bring our things downstairs into my basement. I recall the last exchange my dad and I would ever have, him grousing about a computer mouse he felt I had misplaced. I snapped back about how I had been gone that whole weekend and wouldn't know where the fuck it is. Me being tired from a long weekend and my pop being drunk and baked himself, I gave the terse nature of the conversation no further thought, at least at the time.
By Mathew Beconovich8 years ago in Families
Cope
Losing somebody you love changes you. It changes the person you are at that time, and the person you’ll be in the future. It’s something that you must cope with, but that’s something a lot of people can’t do. But I did. And because of that, there is nothing in my life that I am any prouder of.
By Cassandra Slade8 years ago in Families
Life After Being a Caregiver
Have you ever stopped to wonder what happens to a caregiver when their charge departs this world? For professionals, it's easy; they just move on to the next. After all. there's no shortage of sick, elderly, or dying people in the world. It's a job and nothing more. They don't generally become emotionally attached enough that it disturbs their life. But not every caregiver is a professional—most aren’t. Most are family, daughters, sons, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers. Have you ever stopped to ask yourself what happens to them when there's no one left to take care of?
By Shannon Hummell8 years ago in Families
What My Mother Would Have Wanted?!
If you've ever seen the movie Raising Helen then you know there's a scene where when they go to buy a turtle and John Corbett's character is giving Kate Hudson's character a lecture on what her sister expected when she left her the kids. Kate's chatacter tells him bluntly not to talk about her sister, a sister he didn't even know. I understand this so much now it hurts. Every stranger I meet has decided they know what my mom would have wanted more than I do. I spent my entire life with her, we talked about everything. They think in my grief I no longer have any rational thought, but my grief has actually made me think more rationally than before. I've always seen the world differently, more clearely in a sense. I see more of the possibilities of what could happen, I see more of reality. I never saw the world through rose-colored glasses, never pretended it was better than it was. Perhaps that's why I've always hated it so much. Disliked people so much. I've seen so much of the bad. My mother and I asked each often where are these good people who are supposedly out there? We never found an answer, no matter how hard we tried. Never found the good people. We just had each other.
By Shannon Hummell8 years ago in Families
My Journey In Grief
The one thing I've realized in the last 26 days since my life was destroyed is just how many misconceptions surround you when you lose a loved one. Now for me, I didn't just lose someone I loved, I lost the person I love most, the person I need most, the only family I have left, and the only person I can depend on. To put it mildly, I lost my entire reason for existing at all. Of course, people being the lovely creatures that they are, cue sarcasm, they have treated me like my mother's death was meaningless. Even going so far as to say so to my face. Almost everyone I tell has decided to push their own ideas and opinions onto me of how I should handle my grief, if you listen to most I'm not doing it right. Fortunately, I've learned over the years to never listen to people, never to let them make choices for me. To never follow a crowd. This, of course, makes them angry, then it's always there's something wrong with me. Their opinions mean less than nothing to me, especially now. But their cruel words would have easily driven another person to suicide.
By Shannon Hummell8 years ago in Families
Statistic in the System
I'm sitting here thinking where I could possibly begin this and, I'm realizing that you are 19 hours from here in a shared house with your soon-to-be in laws-probably sleeping with your girlfriend and current mother of your one and a half kids. While I've spent hours, and hours feeling depressed and saddened by your poor choices in fatherhood for the child you and I share. I blamed myself for a very long time, and sometimes I still do. How could I have been so wrong? What did I do to push you away? How am I going to explain this to my daughter?
By Rebecca Lynn8 years ago in Families
Dear Dad
Dear Dad, The day is half way gone and I've spent most of it trying to ignore the obvious, but I won't let it go by without acknowledging you. I'd never do that. It's been 26 years to the day that you were taken from me. 26 years. I've come to terms with the fact that I don't know how to grieve. I don't know how to properly and healthily process what happened. I feel like I start the grieving process over and over again. It never stops. It doesn't get better. It never gets "easier." I hate myself sometimes because I can't remember what your voice sounds like. That drives me crazy. 1991 didn't have the technology of today so I don't have any recordings or videos or anything where I can just hear your voice. I daydream about how different my life would be of you weren't taken from me. I think about the impact you would have had on who I turned out to be as a person. I feel like there is a void there that will never be filled. That could never be filled. Had I known we only had five years to squeeze in a lifetime of memories, I would have fought to spend more time with you. I would have spent all of my time with you. All I have left are fading memories, and stories of your past from people who knew you better than I did. Every once in a while I have to tell one of your old teammates that you're no longer with us. They stare at me with pity in an awkward silence. It's been a pretty weird couple of decades.
By Ashlee Nicole8 years ago in Families
Revelation
It came to me in a dream, like a labyrinth of unmistakable waves. Hours prior I had received the worst news a young child of thirteen years of age could adhere. Something so unfathomable, and something so unrealistic in a young and naive mind. "I'm sorry I have to be the one to tell you this," my eldest brother spoke, panicked over the phone, "but Mom just passed away."
By Crysta Miracle8 years ago in Families
