Accepting death as part of life
I have been afraid of death since I was little. I can imagine that this is a normal thing, that all children have a fear of death as it's something that hard to explain. We all have a fear of losing someone close to us or our own death. As a parent now, I see every little danger that I never noticed before, standing on the chair could lead to falling on your head wrong....I read a friend's article once where she talked about this...the horrific thoughts we have as parents when we start spotting every potential danger. Its a difficult balance to let your children wander while keeping them safe.
I can remember very clearly having what I would now call a panic attack in my parent's living room late one night. I would go to bed, all would be fine, then I would start thinking about death and I couldn't breath anymore. I would go downstairs crying and asking for help. I don't remember the words my parents used to calm me in those moments but I remember the calmness of their voices and the rubbing of my back, maybe cuddles on the couch.
I thought that as I got older those feelings would go away and I would become an adult and understand death and it wouldn't scare me anymore. I lost my grandma when I was 7 years old. I remember where I was standing when my mom told me she died and I remember the colors of the blanket hanging on the rocking chair I was staring at as she told me. Memories don't live in our brains the way most people think, they live in our bodies, we can hear sounds, smell things, feel sensations, see colors and vivid details. When something tragic happens in your life we often take a photograph of the event, how many times have you heard people say "I remember exactly what I was doing when I got the call about..." or they tell you where they were during 911.
After my grandma passed away, I didn't have any deaths close to me for a while, as childhood should be. I was 20 the time my parents sat me on my bed junior year of college and told me my other grandma had cancer and only a few months to live. I remember the way the plant looked and how dark the room was when they were talking to me. My grandma passed away that year while I was studying in London. Then I was 22 I got a call from a friend to say our mutual friend had died in a horrific car accident. Three years later I was at work when my best friend called crying to say our friend had committed suicide. Then only one year later, my friend had dropped dead during the running race that we were both running in. Why I lost three young friends all so tragically, I'll never understand, why all within a short period of time or why my good friend had to be the bearer of the bad news three times in a row...well again these aren't questions I have answers to.
I've had death in my life and tragic death to say the least. There isn't much time in my life that passes where I don't think about my friend who committed suicide. He's there with me in the work I do today in mental health. I would think that after all this time I would be OK with death, have had accepted it as a natural part of life and not been scared of it. The truth was I buried those feelings because I didn't understand them, I buried the thoughts and the questions and I do what I normally do best, deal with the here and now and problem solve.
I took a job at Children's Hospital a few years ago and I had never thought when taking the job that I would also be dealing with death in the most confronting way possible. I didn't know that I would one day need to be in the room with parents when they learned of their child's death, that I would be present in someone's shock, someone's grief, someone's pain.
I have been a social worker for over 10 years and I have walked with people on many journeys of pain. I have listened to thousands of stories of severe and profound trauma, I have counselled people through grief and bereavement, but never in my experiences had I been present in the moments leading up to and following the death of anyone. Never the less a child.
A few months after I started my work at the hospital, I was home on a day off with my daughter when my husband called around 3pm in the afternoon, I was sitting on the couch on my computer as it was her nap time. He said to me, I'm on the train home. I immediately panicked, why? I asked. He then uttered three words that I have heard in my head over and over again more than a year later.
"My dad died."
I sat there on the floor with our daughter and sobbed, she was giggling, not knowing what to do with her mommy. I couldn't function or think. I was in complete and utter shock. My father in law. I had a gripping pain in my chest that wouldn't go away. I couldn't think what to do, all I could think was that it was a mistake and he had got the news wrong, someone would call soon and tell us he is OK. I couldn't believe it. He had sent a text message earlier in the day in response to pictures I sent him of his granddaughter. How could he be dead. He was also too young and had too many people that loved him to be gone.
Since this time I feel like I aged. A few months ago I watched a movie about a woman dying from AIDS. Something finally triggered inside of me. I was suddenly a scared 6 year old again on the floor of my parent's living room. I sobbed and sobbed. What happens when we die? The questions and fear came flooding back. I had helped families grieve through significant and horrifying traumas over the last year and I never cried. I packed away my sadness and my pain into part of the job and I went home and kissed and hugged my child.
Then I read that social workers were 4 times more likely to suffer from PTSD then any other profession including doctors. I read about how self care is not just attending yoga class and I read about the reality of the impact that our job can have on our minds and our bodies. It wasn't just work that I was sobbing about though, I had lost someone close to me and I had lost other people in my life recently that I hadn't grieved. I had even lost the old me.
I suppose this is a part of growing older, being more accustomed to losing people. With the recent devastating gun violence in the US, I think about the children, the families, the friends left behind learning to come to terms with shocking deaths. Living with PTSD. I wonder what this means for the generation of children growing up now.
I can remember very clearly having what I would now call a panic attack in my parent's living room late one night. I would go to bed, all would be fine, then I would start thinking about death and I couldn't breath anymore. I would go downstairs crying and asking for help. I don't remember the words my parents used to calm me in those moments but I remember the calmness of their voices and the rubbing of my back, maybe cuddles on the couch.
I thought that as I got older those feelings would go away and I would become an adult and understand death and it wouldn't scare me anymore. I lost my grandma when I was 7 years old. I remember where I was standing when my mom told me she died and I remember the colors of the blanket hanging on the rocking chair I was staring at as she told me. Memories don't live in our brains the way most people think, they live in our bodies, we can hear sounds, smell things, feel sensations, see colors and vivid details. When something tragic happens in your life we often take a photograph of the event, how many times have you heard people say "I remember exactly what I was doing when I got the call about..." or they tell you where they were during 911.
After my grandma passed away, I didn't have any deaths close to me for a while, as childhood should be. I was 20 the time my parents sat me on my bed junior year of college and told me my other grandma had cancer and only a few months to live. I remember the way the plant looked and how dark the room was when they were talking to me. My grandma passed away that year while I was studying in London. Then I was 22 I got a call from a friend to say our mutual friend had died in a horrific car accident. Three years later I was at work when my best friend called crying to say our friend had committed suicide. Then only one year later, my friend had dropped dead during the running race that we were both running in. Why I lost three young friends all so tragically, I'll never understand, why all within a short period of time or why my good friend had to be the bearer of the bad news three times in a row...well again these aren't questions I have answers to.
I've had death in my life and tragic death to say the least. There isn't much time in my life that passes where I don't think about my friend who committed suicide. He's there with me in the work I do today in mental health. I would think that after all this time I would be OK with death, have had accepted it as a natural part of life and not been scared of it. The truth was I buried those feelings because I didn't understand them, I buried the thoughts and the questions and I do what I normally do best, deal with the here and now and problem solve.
I took a job at Children's Hospital a few years ago and I had never thought when taking the job that I would also be dealing with death in the most confronting way possible. I didn't know that I would one day need to be in the room with parents when they learned of their child's death, that I would be present in someone's shock, someone's grief, someone's pain.
I have been a social worker for over 10 years and I have walked with people on many journeys of pain. I have listened to thousands of stories of severe and profound trauma, I have counselled people through grief and bereavement, but never in my experiences had I been present in the moments leading up to and following the death of anyone. Never the less a child.
A few months after I started my work at the hospital, I was home on a day off with my daughter when my husband called around 3pm in the afternoon, I was sitting on the couch on my computer as it was her nap time. He said to me, I'm on the train home. I immediately panicked, why? I asked. He then uttered three words that I have heard in my head over and over again more than a year later.
"My dad died."
I sat there on the floor with our daughter and sobbed, she was giggling, not knowing what to do with her mommy. I couldn't function or think. I was in complete and utter shock. My father in law. I had a gripping pain in my chest that wouldn't go away. I couldn't think what to do, all I could think was that it was a mistake and he had got the news wrong, someone would call soon and tell us he is OK. I couldn't believe it. He had sent a text message earlier in the day in response to pictures I sent him of his granddaughter. How could he be dead. He was also too young and had too many people that loved him to be gone.
Since this time I feel like I aged. A few months ago I watched a movie about a woman dying from AIDS. Something finally triggered inside of me. I was suddenly a scared 6 year old again on the floor of my parent's living room. I sobbed and sobbed. What happens when we die? The questions and fear came flooding back. I had helped families grieve through significant and horrifying traumas over the last year and I never cried. I packed away my sadness and my pain into part of the job and I went home and kissed and hugged my child.
Then I read that social workers were 4 times more likely to suffer from PTSD then any other profession including doctors. I read about how self care is not just attending yoga class and I read about the reality of the impact that our job can have on our minds and our bodies. It wasn't just work that I was sobbing about though, I had lost someone close to me and I had lost other people in my life recently that I hadn't grieved. I had even lost the old me.
I suppose this is a part of growing older, being more accustomed to losing people. With the recent devastating gun violence in the US, I think about the children, the families, the friends left behind learning to come to terms with shocking deaths. Living with PTSD. I wonder what this means for the generation of children growing up now.
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