Death has touched my life in a very profound way. When i was 16 i lost my grandmother. It was sudden and unexpected. Her health was declining rapidly for months prior. She refused to see doctors, and she started to show signs of dementia. She was the smartest and kindest person I've ever met. She helped raise me and my brother. She was the first big loss I ever had, and it was difficult for my whole family. My mother was never the same after her passing. Six months later, I lost the only father figure in my life, my uncle, unexpectedly. When we had not heard from him for a few days we became concerned because it wasn't like him to not call. My mother found him. He had been dead for 2 days in his room. That broke my mother. I have never seen a person so lost and broken as my mother was on that day. He was only 45- complications of life long diabetes. My mother lost her way after that. She became depressed, started drinking heavily, and in that time she almost attempted suicide. As a teenager it was hard for me. I had to care for my mom, my brother and grieve my uncle at the same time. Less than a year later my great grandmother passed away. I was close to her growing up but after my grandmother and uncle died, a family feud broke out over wills and deeds. It started with family members that had nothing to do with anything. They got into my 95 year old great grandmother's head and turned her against us. About three years later I got a call that would forever change my life. My mother had passed away. Sudden and unexpectedly she died of a heart attack at only 50 years old. Her death has completely changed me and even now, five years later it still feels so raw. Less than two weeks after my mother passed away, I lost my best friend. She came home from the hospital to be put on hospice. After a life long batter with an extremely rare heart disease, and a heart transplant, my cousin and best friend was dying. She passed away that night in her home, surrounded by people that loved her, including myself. After losing my mom however I was numb to really any feeling. I was there, and i felt it, but already being in a fog made it that much harder to say good bye. It felt more like a bad dream. The next few years are a fog. I was so broken and I had no one to turn to. My brother is the type that hides his feelings from the world, and the rest of my family was gone. I was all alone in the world, and even the few friends I had just didn't understand. I didn't have a great support system, and I grew more and more depressed with time. I pushed through work every day, only because I didn't have a choice. I was angry, and took it out on everyone around me. I just couldn't control myself. Slowly I started to ignore my feelings. Not that they weren't there, but to avoid the crippling reality of the pain I was in. I held most of it in because letting anything out just opened the flood gates. When that happened I wasn't okay for days. It was the only way I found I could survive. I admit most days are okay now. Certain triggers have a profound affect on me still, but I'm finally able to live my day to day life. I considered counseling a few times, but never went through with it. I feel like I'm still not in a good place, but it's nothing like the first few years. I feel like I'm just going through the motions though, and counting down to the days and months that are the hardest.
