New here, hoping to find others who actually comprehend what it’s like to struggle with not just grief but complicated grief. It’s something that is not understood, one cannot even imagine it unless one actually lives it.
Broken9902,
First I would like to say how very sorry I am for all your losses you have had in life. Life can be so awful.
I understand how comprehensive grief gets worse as you struggle with each new death you face in life. I never have fully put on paper all at once my story in those terms, but to let you know I have been shattered by death over and over throughout my life.
I am going to be brutally blunt and open up to you and others to let you know life while it can be good, it can also be extremely hard to go on, time after time after multiple deaths in your lifetime.
For me my story begins with my grandfather, and grandmother who I spent summers with. At age ten my grandfather had a heart attack, there was no 911 in those days (60 years ago). He asked me to get his rifle and stop his pain. I panicked, ran out of the house, as grandmother was shopping in town. I ran from house to house knocking on doors yelling for help, and it wasn’t till the 3rd or 4th house someone finally answered and came and helped. When he died years later I was serving in Okinawa when I receive the call he had died.
My grandmother developed Alzheimer's and eventually no longer recognized me as I stood in front of her. She died about 6 years later.
At home one aunt and uncle would come to our house on the weekends and play cards with my parents. I so enjoyed listening and watching them. My aunt died one day, and was found by my uncle, as she had opened the window and was found leaning out the window in winter. My uncle could not take the loss of his wife so he hung himself in that very same room two days later, just a block from our house.
My two favorite uncles who had always taken me fishing both had heart attacks there in my grandfather’s house. As each of these deaths accumulated, I had developed a problem of visiting gravesites at this point. It just brought too many bad memories forward.
As time passed my dad died of lung cancer. It was at this point that I developed panic attacks. I had actually believed I forgot how to breath. The stress of everything had accumulated over time to the point that those attacks were my way of trying to deal with everything. My doctor treated me for depression, and that lasted for 6 months, but I could now at least deal with life on a more even foot.
My mother who I was taking care of got to the point of needing special care. She ended up in a special hospital, and died there 6 months later of stomach flu.
I had used the military service as a way to escape my life in Maine and all the bad memories it held for me. A shift worker of ours was killed by a dump trump in Okinawa. Her fiance was also on our shift and it was tough to help him get over it, he was crushed.
In Two Rock Ranch, just outside Petaluma, California I was bowling with a military friend, just the two of us, and he got a call on the phone his dad had just died. Man, trying to help him calm down enough to start on his way on emergency leave home was very tough to take.
When in Nha Trang, South Vietnam, we were hit with a 122 rocket. I had got off shift and was asleep as the rocket hit. I was so startled I knocked the door off the hinges to my barracks room, as I ran for the bunker. The rocket hit my work van, a coworker was killed and 3 others wounded.
There were other deaths in Vietnam, though I did not personally know them, their loss had a significant impact on how you viewed each day as you awoke.
My most significant loss was of course my wife Nadine of 42 years. I watched her wither away over the course of ten years. Some of what I have seen her endure was just too damn awful to even attempt to describe.
So I will say, yes, I have seen death. I have been changed permanently and will never again be the naive young kid I was. I don’t have all the answers, I can’t even answer the why’s.
What makes it even worse is this time of year. The holidays are extremely hard to overcome. My two sons and I haven’t put up a Christmas tree in over ten years now, or used decorations of any type.
Even though I put on the best face I can for those who really don’t know me, if it wasn’t for my belief in God I don’t know if I would have still been here today. God is the one true thing I cling to the most in life.
So that is my losses in life so far. I hope you can work towards healing and relief. God Bless
signed david
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