Dealing With The Death Of A Loved One

My mom called me last night to tell me the last of my father's siblings had passed away.  I was glad to hear her say that the pastor from Hospice had visited with him several times and he had begun to leave his television on a channel broadcasting a local preacher.  I hope and pray he had accepted the Lord as his savior prior to his passing.  His wife had passed away years before and he never had any children.  I was glad my cousin, my mother, my sister and brother along with their spouses were with him and he wasn't alone.

I've spent the night reflecting on the loved ones I've lost over the course of my life.  I remember one of my father's brothers who sang in a country music band.  When he would come home to visit he would spend the night playing his guitar and singing with me sitting on the floor in front of him.  I remember him playing one night until his fingers began to bleed from the guitar strings and he reached down into his guitar case to retrieve guitar picks which he placed on each finger and continued playing his guitar and singing for me.  I was young when he died but his passing away was the first sense of loss I experienced.

My mother's mother, passed away when I was seventeen.  I loved her so much. I loved spending time with her over the summers.  She always made me feel so grown as a child because she would allow me to drink coffee with her each morning, but most importantly she communicated with me.  She talked to me, she listened to me, she made me feel that someone cared for me, her.  She had developed the symptoms of Alzheimer’s before they ever named it that.  She would go through the names of all the grandchildren before she ever got it right.  Most of the time you would have to tell her who you were and she still wouldn't remember it. She eventually began living with my aunt and uncle and they eventually had to come up with some creative means of keeping her in the house at night after finding her out by their pond and tobacco barns looking for my grandfather who had passed away many years before.  She was such a strong Christian woman so when she died regardless of my sense of loss I knew she was finally at peace.

I remember the day I received the call at work informing me that my dad had been taken to the hospital and the doctors weren't expecting him to survive, therefore had suggested that my mother notify family members.  After arriving at the hospital my dad looked at me and said, "If you will stay with me I'll make it through the night and part of the day tomorrow".  I think it came as a surprise to everyone else as well as me that he wanted me to stay with him.  I surely thought he would have wanted my sister to stay with him.  He and I had butted heads and exchanged angry words on so many occasions because of the way he would curse my mom as she bathed, shaved, dressed, feed and cared for him for a number of years during his illness.  Prior to that night I wasn't sure what I was going to feel when he passed away.  I knew I longed for my mother to have some peace and happiness in her life which I knew she would never have as long as he was alive.  One of my siblings once made the comment that the only sense of loss they would feel when he passed away would be "the father he could have been but never was."  (If you read my story you will better understand these feelings.)

I'm very thankful for that night with my father.  We shared so much during the night.  He told me that one thing he admired about me was the fact that I was outspoken and he never had to wonder where he stood with me. He pointed out to me many characteristics which we shared and said, "As much as you may hate to admit it, you're a lot more like me than you might want to admit, but atleast you got the good ones."  We read Psalm 23 together.  I remember hearing the birds the next morning and he said, "Well, we made it through the night."  My dad shared so much with me that night, including the fact that he had made his peace with God and he knew he was ready to go.  I was so thankful for that.  I was also thankful that my dad and I had made peace with each other.  I left to go home to get a shower the next morning after my mother arrived.  When I returned to the hospital shortly after noon my mother, sister, both brothers and a sister-in-law were in the room.  A few minutes after I got there my father died.  It was almost as though he was waiting for me to get there.  My father, the man who had been so afraid of dying alone died peacefully with wife and all of his children in the room with him.  He had made it through the night and part of the next day just as he had said he would.

The loss of my oldest brother was the one that really hit me the hardest.  He died in May of 2008 at the age of 57.  I experienced an enormous sense of loss when he died.  The finality of it seemed so hard to grasp.  For weeks I felt like it was just a bad dream because it couldn't be real. 

After my father died I was spending the night with my mother and awoke gasping for air because I couldn't breathe.  I had been dreaming that my mother had passed away and was consumed in grief.  I went into my mother's room and got into bed with her, holding her and crying.  She asked me what was wrong and I shared my dream with her and told her I couldn't take losing her.  She replied, "Honey, you wouldn't want to deprive me of going where I've lived my whole life to be would you?"  I said, "Mom, you make me sound selfish."  She didn't reply.  As painful as the loss may be and believe me I pray I never have to go through the experience of losing some loved ones, there are those that are inevitable.  II Corinthians 5:8 tells us "We have confident and hopeful courage and are pleased rather to be away from home out of the body and be at home with the Lord".  Amplified Version

I have a dear friend who is caring for her terminally ill mother and is having a difficult time facing the loss of her mother.  Please remember Dianne and Ms. Helen in your prayers.  Who have you lost?  How did you deal with it?  What gave you strength?