Death is
a part of life that none of us can ever escape, and while we all understand
that concept, it never really dawns on any of us how true that statement is
until we've either lost someone, or someone we know has. When news like that hits you, its a lot like
having someone box your ears for you.
You're left a little dazed, the world loses it's sound, and for what
seems like an eternity, you're trapped, wrapped in this shroud of despair and
pity.
When we
know someone who has lost someone important to them, it is our general purpose
to want to help, be supportive, and be encouraging. People often want to help others, but they
just never know what to say or what to do.
Well not to worry, because I’m here to help you, help them. So, you have a friend, who has lost someone
very important to them, and now, you want to say the perfect thing to solve all
their problems and gift them wind beneath their wings again. Here it is, are you ready? There is NO
perfect way, or even possible way, to achieve this. I’m sorry, that was sort of misleading, but
so is life. As we realize and start to
appreciate the world and situations around us, that is when life decides its to
shake us up like a snow globe.
There is
no easy way to deal with death, or to help your friends and loved ones deal
with it. The best thing you can do is
just let them know you are there for them, you understand, you want to help,
and you’re there, and for a lot of us, that may seem like we are not doing
enough, but truly, you are.
Recently,
a good friend of mine lost someone very important to her. She loved him very dearly, and with all her
heart and in a flash, he was ripped away from her without any real reason. While I never knew this guy, I knew how much
he meant to her. For me, I am a very
over caring person, I want to help everyone the best that I can and I am
willing to put my personal life on hold to do so, but with situations like
this, it always feels like I am not doing enough, and recently I have
discovered that just being there, is often enough. Now, I don’t see this friend often, we’ve
only spoken over the phone once, we’ve never hung out, but friends reach out to
friends whenever they can. Over the
week, I messaged her to see how she was doing, chit chat with her when she
wanted, and just encouraged her while trying to be supportive. About a week went by and I honestly felt so
horrible. I saw her posts online, and
you could just feel the sadness and heartbreak through her messages. It broke my heart to see someone hurt so
much, and I couldn’t blame her, if I ever lost my fiancé, I’m not even fully
sure what I would do, so my heart really went out to her, because I could never
imagine what she is going through, but towards the end of the week I got a
message from her thanking me for just being there and genuinely caring. That is when I realized that even as
bystanders we can still make a difference just by the simple fact of being
there, being supportive, and reminding our friends that even though this time
is difficult, they have support all around them and no matter which way they
might fall, someone will be there to catch them.
Going
through this, is a lot different. People
are different, and everyone will handle these situations differently. Some will wear their emotions on their
sleeve, others will have a more stoic approach, some people want to make jokes,
and honestly, all of those are okay. You
can’t tell other people how to feel, no one should tell you how to feel in a situation
like this. Losing someone you dearly
care about isn’t like being stung by a bee.
It’s more like someone stabbed you, broke open your chest, took out your
heart, and smash it over and over again right in front of your face, and there
isn’t a thing you can do about it except repeatedly feel like the live is being
sucked out of your body time and time again.
People
all respond to this vastly differently.
Some people want to drink, others make impulse decisions, some spend
their time letting others lean on them and trying to be supportive, and others
walk around like it doesn't even phase them while really its breaking them
apart inside, some want to cry and do multiple times throughout the day, others
get angry, and I can’t give you advice on how to deal with all of these. This blog entry will end up turning into a
book, instead, I am going to give general advice for anyone suffering through
this difficult time.
You may
feel like you’re alone now, life is unfair and robbed you of the time you had
with that person. You had so many plans,
so many dreams, and now they’ve been shattered.
They’re no longer here with you, and you are just left broken in their
wake. But REMEMBER, they are never truly
gone. Even in life, we often find
ourselves torn away from our loved ones.
We move away, we get busy with school, work, kids, or whatever comes
up. It is never anyone persons intention
to grow so distant, it just happens. But
during those periods when you don’t see your family or friends, you are not
speaking, you’re just too busy, but even in those times our friends are always
with us. We keep our memories and love
in our heart, and any time we want to see them we just remember back to one of
the many memories we’ve shared with them, and it helps get us through the
day. The person you love might
physically be gone now, but they will forever live on in your heart and the hearts
of everyone else. It might be painful to
talk about them in past tense, but never lose site of it, never stop
talking. We spend far too much time
trying to “play it cool” when really deep down, we all feel the same way.
This
time, and the months leading away from it are going to be hard, we are going to
be reminded, we are going to hurt, we are going to go through several different
stages, but the one thing that is not going to change over that period of time
is that our loved ones just want us to be happy, even after they are gone. No one says “Hey, when I die, you better be
sad”, obviously we will be sad and upset!
What they want for us is to be happy, to not grieve to long. Those dreams we shared, they want us to
pursue them and go after them. Our loved
ones also will want us to move on, everyone understands mourning and no one
expects you to wake up tomorrow with a smile on your face and live like it
never happened, but over time, they all want us to finally pick ourselves up,
and get back out there, live life, enjoy ourselves, and enjoy the time we still
have with others.
While
death, is never something anyone wants, there are things we can take from it
and apply to our lives. No matter how
much time we spend with a person, we never ever feel like it was enough. For me, I don’t talking about death, I don’t
like talking about my friends or family who have passed, so this next part is a
bit more difficult for me, even if it is in the form of words on the internet.
Years
ago, I had a very dear friend. We lived
across the street as kids, we went to school together, we worked together, we
lived together, got promoted together, had a youtube channel together, we had
dreams together. He was a very good
friend to me, like a brother, but he died almost a few years ago. We were 21, and in an instant he was taken
away. I remember the week leading up to
it even. I had finally discovered where
he had “come up with” the term “Hungry Chickens” I even posted on his Facebook
about it. We always joked, and goofed
around, he was a good guy, he was a great friend. During the whole week of his death, I took a
stoic approach, I was there for other people, I didn’t let my pain show
through. I remember, I was living at
home at the time, I walked downstairs and my mom was crying. I asked her what was wrong and she told me
that she just felt so bad for me, that I lost such a dear friend, and as I
mentioned above, I really don’t like talking about death, and I definitely don’t
like when people randomly bring it up. I
responded rather coldly saying “I don’t know why you’re sad, he wasn’t your
friend, you didn’t even really know him”.
I still feel fairly bad for lashing out so quickly and coldly, mom,
thanks for trying to reach out and be there for me, I really did appreciate it,
I just didn’t know how to handle it other than by getting angry and running
off. The week of the funeral went by in
a flash too, and while I was there for friends, and family, I remember being so
angry too. Photos of family and friends
were shared, photos of him and people he never really even hung out with, but
where was the stuff about us? No photos,
not even a mention, I didn’t help with anything, and while it is certainly
selfish to say, I really felt like I was an “underground friend” to him. Like our friendship was a secret from the
world. It felt like a large part of me
was missing, and it slowly started to eat away at my psyche, were we friends,
did he think of me as a friend, did he feel the same way about that I had about
him? It just slowly ate away at me and
started to drive me crazy, but, I certainly didn’t show it, at least not to
many, and not to anyone I was close with.
I do remember about 6 months after everything, his girlfriend had moved
back to the cities, and I texted her asking her questions about it, and while
she reassured me that the feeling was mutual and he did see me as a good
friend, to this day, Im never really sure, and when Im on a bad day, I still
let it eat away at me slowly.
But
through all of that I learned something.
I learned that while I might never be fully confident or know for sure,
that I won’t leave other people with the same wonder. When him and I both existed at the same time,
it was like Ying and Yang. He was
positive, I was negative, even at work.
I remember, he had just bought his house and was all worried about
flooding. He was talking about it at
work, and everyone was being encouraging, but, here comes Chuck “haha, your
house is going to flood!” “No its not.” “Hey, look at me, I bought a house on
the river and surprised its flooding!” “Shut up Chuck, you suck!” stuff like
that was really common for us, we went into the manager’s office and waited for
everyone to get out and he just collapsed on the desk and looked up at me “Chuck,
I’m really worried that my house is going flood!” I patted him on the back “Dude
you’re going to be fine, you have home owner’s insurance, you sand bagged a
ton, and your relater told you that your land is fairly high up and shouldn’t
flood.” “Yeah, that’s true…” “But out there, I gotta give you a hard time, but
just remember that I’m with you man, everything is gonna be fine.” And he
brightened up and we went back to work.
That’s how we were. But when he
left, there was no push back, there was no positive to go in stride with my
negative, and after a few months of being closed off in wonder, I came out a
much more positive person. I felt like I
needed to live for him too, and thus I discovered the more sensitive side of
myself that he was known for. I could
dig inside me and take emotion and put into relate-able words. I don’t believe I would've ever fully
achieved something like that, if it wasn't for him.
Now, I
share my feelings with the people around me, I let the people that matter to me
know how much they mean to me, and that is something that you should do as
well. While your loved one might be “gone”,
and you feel your time was robbed, please remember that you do have other
people you care about that are still here.
Take the time to let them know how much they mean to you, before time
runs out with them as well.
There is
no perfect advice my friends, there is no clean or perfect way to deal with any
type of situation, but, there are good ways to deal with them. Please please please please, if it is one
thing you take away from this blog, please understand and remember, that
reaching out to people, is not a weakness.
It takes incredible strength to step outside of yourself and actually
say “I think I might need some help here” and I wish I would’ve fully
understood that when I was younger, even now I am struggling with it, but I am
making strides to reach our for help when I need it, versus trying to struggle
doing everything alone.
If you
guys have any advice you need, or a specific topic that you want me to cover,
please, feel free to comment, email, message, just reach out and I will do
whatever I can to try and help you. Best
wishes.
The Q
man
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