When death happens we often associate it with an emotion, but death is actually an experience. An experience that will happen to each of us. An experience that is apart of living, and an experience that is the inevitable. To accept life, you have to accept that death will happen to you. Fact is, we live to die. Every day you continue to live you are actually dying.
Every death is a different experience. A death from sickness allows you to begin to accept the death and allows you to mentally prepare for the day the person will no longer be here. The best way to do this is to spend as much quality time as you can with the person. I did that with my dad. He was diagnosed with lung fibrosis and was given 5 years to live. I decided that I would do everything he wanted to do with him and spend as much time with him as possible. It eased the pain when I got the call he was gone because I knew that I did all I could to see him, go fishing with him, and talk to him.
Sudden death is a whole different experience because it is so abrupt. You get a call and that’s that! You never get the chance to do anything. If your last encounter was bad that is all you have left. That bad experience with that person before they were taken from you will effect your death experience because that was the last thing you have with them.
Murder death, suicide death, car accident death, etc are all sudden death experiences that can take you to a bad place mentally. Especially if your last encounter with the person was on a bad note. You are laser focused on what you should have and could have done that your grief is hard to bear. You play a blame game in your head. You mentally F**k yourself. This type of death causes you to go into thoughts so deep that depression can set in from you wishing you did something different.
When I got the call Samaad was shot I knew that he passed away for some reason. I just screamed in the car on the way to the hospital, “He’s gone!”
Even though he was in surgery for what seemed like days, but was actually only hours, he passed away after the doctors tried to save his life from 2 gunshot wounds. This death rocked my world, but it also taught me a lot about death, the experience of death, the emotions of grief, how to cope with death, how to grieve, how to continue to live on after death, how to love myself through his death, and most importantly how to find peace in death, and to continue to celebrate the life of the deceased instead of mourning their death.
The experience of death is personal for me. I chose to use different ways to help me cope. I will never get over the deaths I experienced in my life, I am only learning to heal from the pain of these death experiences. And finding peace in the midst of these tragedy is important for me to keep living my life…
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