Today it has been 11 years since someone very close to me left this world. Yesterday was his birthday. He would have been 35. It doesn't seem like 11 years have gone by since his death. Even though it does somehow get easier each year, the wounds still seem too fresh to be 11 years old. My memories are too vivid.
But my memories of his death and the funeral and everything surrounding it are even more vivid. So, I know it's real. It was the hardest thing I've ever gone through. I can't even imagine what his parents and his sister feel when this time of year comes around. I know I usually have a few quiet days of reflection. Days where I listen to songs that remind me of him and thumb through old pictures of all of us.
I've heard people describe how when a loved-one dies they lose a little peice of themselves and I never really understood it until 11 years ago today. That may sound silly, but it's true. I'm simply not the same person I used to be. I lost a little bit of something in my personality. I blamed myself for not doing more. I still do blame myself for not doing more. I changed, and I will never be the same.
Since his death, I feel disconnected somehow from his parents and his sister. I guess it's because of the sadness and my feelings of guilt. I just feel awkward around them now, like I'm an intruder into their world or like I might trigger some memory of the bad times. Because I was his roommate when he died. So, I should have been there. It's crazy. It's tragic. It's difficult. It's 11 years later and I still need my quiet days.
2 comments:
So sorry. Thinking of you today.
When I lost my mother to breast cancer in 1991, I joined the death-and-dying group therapy session at the University of Arizona. We read "On Death and Dying" by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross where she describes the Seven Stages of Loss: Shock, Denial, Anger, Guilt, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. I went through all seven stages. It took me about two years and I was finally at acceptance. A couple of days later I was angry again. So I called my therapist.
-ME: I went through the seven stages of loss and I was at acceptance. Now I'm angry again. What happened?
-THERAPIST: Oh, you will continue to go through all seven stages over and over again for the rest of your life. Sometimes you will cycle through them in one morning, and sometimes you will go through all of them over a month or two.
-ME: (dripping with bitter disappointment) Oh. Thank you for that. Doctor.
It may be eleven years but you will still have the feelings loss for the rest of your life. Which totally sucks.
I feel for the parents of your friend. If you lose your parents, you are an orphan. If you lose your wife, you are a widower. If you lose your husband, you are a widow. But if you lose a child: there isn't even a word in the English language that describes that. It is so unfair and against the natural order of things.
I'm sorry for your loss...
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