Funerals

Last weekend was fun for me. I went to the Renaissance Fair with my mother on Saturday and went to a local colonial era festival with my sister on Sunday (mostly arts and crafts vendors but with a few battle re-enactments and costumes). After working all week and being busy last weekend, I was hoping for an opportunity to relax this weekend, but apparently I'm out of luck. This weekend is not only going to be busy, but also depressing. My husband's father's best friend passed away so we went to the viewing and my parents' neighbor passed away as well and we have to go to the funeral this morning. These were people that my husband and I have known since we were children so it's a rough weekend for both of us. However, going to viewings and funerals is hard for me for a different reason. It's not so difficult because of the people who died this time, but because death always makes me think about my grandmother. That was by far the hardest death I've ever had to go through.

As soon as the news spread, everyone knew that I would take it the hardest. I was her primary caregiver in the months before she died, I spent every day with her, I grew up with her and spent far more time at my grandparents' house than my sister or my cousins, and of course, I was the one that found her. Everyone then started to make their attempts of conveying sympathy and trying to comfort me. They're nice gestures, but anyone who's ever lost someone truly close to them knows that there isn't anything that can actually help in that situation. It's been three and a half years now and to this day, nothing has helped. If the topic of death disturbs you, skip this post. I'm not holding back, but I am willing to give fair warning.

Being the person who finds the dead body of a loved one is difficult in a way that I can't even begin to explain. It's one of those things that you've either experienced and understand or you don't and won't be able to understand no matter how it's explained to you. It was the hardest thing I have ever had to handle. I walked into that room and immediately went into a panic. I refused to accept that she was gone. I called 911 and attempted CPR on someone who at that point had been dead for hours, whose body was already in rigor mortis, whose mouth was hanging open and eyes weren't fully closed, whose body was half laying off the bed, whose legs were swollen and purple from blood draining. Death seems peaceful when you get to just show up at the funeral home and see the person lying in a casket with their arms folded. Death seems peaceful when the monitor in the hospital suddenly goes flat. I watched my great uncle die before my eyes in the hospital and though it was hard when the monitor began to sound, he was still lying there in his hospital bed just the same as a moment before. I didn't see my uncle die, but I saw him the hours leading up to his death and saw how hard he was fighting to live, struggling to breathe, and I can only imagine what my cousins must have gone through being in the room when he passed. I'm glad they got to be with him though, because while I don't know if it would've been harder for them to find him later or watch him pass, at least they don't have to deal with the unanswered questions that I have to deal with.

My grandmother quite obviously died while trying to get out of bed. She may have known it was coming, she may have cried out for help, she may have been attempting to get to someone who could help her or trying to reach for the phone. I'll never know now, but I know she didn't get to die in her sleep like she wanted. She didn't get the peaceful death we all deserve. Nothing anyone can tell me will change that. No amount of people telling me that it wasn't my fault will get me to care because I know if I had heard her call out, if she even did call out, at least she wouldn't have died alone. Even if I couldn't have prevented it, I would have preferred for her to die with someone there with her.

Now I have to live with that, knowing I wasn't there for her in the moment when she needed me the most even though she was there for me my entire life. That's the hardest thing to have to live with. I have a lot of things in my life to feel guilty over, but nothing has ever topped this. Every time I'm faced with the issue of death, I have to deal with it again. Every time something reminds me of her, I have to deal with it. When I watch a movie, tv show, or go through a haunted house and someone is lying in the position I found her in, I start to feel sick. I hyperventilate and feel like I'm going to pass out. My heart starts racing, I feel like I can't breathe, can't focus, get hit with a wave of nausea, and start crying. Sometimes it's even hard for me to find the words to explain why or what I'm feeling, I just shut down and my body goes into panic mode like I'm finding her all over again. When I dream at night, sometimes it's me reliving that moment. My dream self walks toward that door and I know what's on the other side but I have to open it anyway. Sometimes I find her alive in the room and my mind knows that's not what really happens and part of me says that this isn't right, it's not what happened, but then dream me ignores it and just hugs her and pretends that it's real even though everything suddenly feels "off". Dream me starts to wonder if it's really her or something that looks like her pretending to be her. It's not something you deal with right after the death and just move on with your life afterward. It's something I will probably be dealing with for the rest of my life. I wouldn't wish this on anyone.

I'm not sure exactly how these two people died this week but I know they were sick for a long time. I hope, both for their sake and for the sake of their loved ones, that they either passed away peacefully in their sleep or with their loved ones with them. I hope they didn't feel pain. I hope their loved ones don't have to deal with any unanswered questions that they will be wondering about for the rest of their lives. The alternative is devastating.