Death is a funny thing. Not necessarily funny in a “Ha ha” kind of way, but funny in the way it approaches you.
You grow up knowing that you’re getting older. How can we not? As soon as we’re old enough to count backwards we’re counting down the days until we’re one year older. Eventually, those countdowns stop, but at what point is different for every person. It was only a couple years ago when I personally stopped caring about how old I was soon going to be.
I have found that there comes a point where you stop counting down to how old you’re going to be and start adding up how many days you’ve had to enjoy life. It may sound a little morbid, but for me, it was when my Grandma passed away a month ago. It was sudden, it was hard, and it still is.
We were told that she had 3 to 6 months to live, but she only lived for about 2 more weeks past that prognosis. See, you can countdown as much as you like, but sometimes life has a funny way of throwing a wrench into things.
Sometimes I forget that people, animals, myself … You only get older. I’m struggling with the acceptance of this, especially since my mom had to put our dog down because of cancer in the fall. I always forget that when you have a pet, chances are that they’re going to die before you do. When Tanner passed in the fall, it was the first time I had really felt grief. Before that, it was when my great-grandma passed away a few years ago, but it never hit me as hard.
But now, with Daphne starting to show signs of her progressing age, it’s getting tough again. I’m constantly worried that I’m going to wake up one morning and she won’t be able to move at all, and I’ll have to say goodbye once again to something I love so much.
Saying goodbye because of death is the hardest thing I think anyone has to do. You can’t avoid death, and you can’t countdown to it. Death works in its own, mysterious ways. I choose not to think that death and the way we die is part of some higher being’s plan. I don’t believe it should be in anyone’s plan to make people’s emotions ache and hurt so badly.
For me, I’ve learned that it’s okay to hate death, but I have to remember that its inevitable. You can’t avoid it, but when it comes, it’s okay to be sad, mad, and angry at it. I don’t know when I’ll fully heal and accept that death has taken those I loved away from me, but with each day, it gets a little easier to cope with.
I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by a supportive family that understands that it’s hard for me to deal with it some days, and when I bust out into tears they don’t judge me, but just love me.
One day I’ll learn not to hate death so much, and to accept it as part of the natural way of life. For now, I’m just going to try to understand it.
How do you deal or cope with death?
Sorry for the somewhat dark nature of this post, but it’s just been on my mind for a while and I needed to get it out.