Tag: death

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life

Don’t Pounce!

As evidenced by the history already recorded here, keeping rodents as pets with young children pretty well guarantees that there will be a pattern of escape and recapture. Such was the case tonight. Mariah informed me that one of Alyssa’s gerbils had gotten away. Very soon after I got in the room Stormy ran out from behind the dresser and ran next to the edge of the bed. I immediately barked “don’t pounce!” By the time I finished those two words Alyssa had pounced and Stormy was bleeding on the ground. I picked her up directly but she died in my hands within seconds.

Shortly after we got our first litter of baby gerbils Laura had the experience of having Isaac pounce on the gerbil she liked the most with the result that it died in Laura’s hands when she picked it up. I thought of that as Stormy died. In Laura’s case she cried for the loss of life because Isaac was too young to understand what had happened. I remember hours later when I got home he still obviously did not understand what had happened. Unlike Isaac, Alyssa did understand what happened so she did the sobbing. While I really felt sorry for the death of Stormy I felt even more sorry for the pain that Alyssa was feeling.

I understand now why Laura felt so deeply in her experience. I’m hoping that I was able to say and do the right things to help Alyssa process and work through her grief. Time will tell but I am encouraged that she was able to go to sleep tonight without too much trouble.

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life

Stability Amid Change

I remember when Elder Neal A. Maxwell died followed closely by the death of Elder David B. Haight. I thought at the time that the church had enjoyed what seemed to be an unusually long period of stability among the highest leadership of the church (The First Presidency and the Quorum of the twelve Apostles). That thought returned to me after the recent passing of President Hinckley – making the fourth death among those councils in under 4 years. That, in turn, brought my thoughts to sister Ruth Faust whose husband, President James E. Faust, was the third of those four to die (6 months ago). Today I learned that Sister Faust passed away this morning – 6 months to the day after her sweetheart.

As all my thoughts coalesced upon learning of her passing I began to feel as if the Lord is turning over the highest leadership of the church to a new generation. Returning to my previous thought, I looked at a chronology of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and found that the more than 9 years without a change that ended with the death of Elder Maxwell was truly unusual. Going all the way back to the beginning of that quorum there has rarely been more than two years without some change in the quorum. Among those rare periods that exceeded two years, none were even as long as 6 years.

What a marvelous thing for the church to have those years. During those 9 years the membership of the church grew by 30% (from 9 to 12 million) and the full term of President Hinckley’s presidency it grew by nearly 50%. (Membership actually almost tripled during the full 26 years that President Hinckley was in the First Presidency – starting from under 5 million and ending above 13 million.) It’s no wonder that his death was felt so strongly by so many in the church.

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life

Life After Death

I have noticed an interesting trend/pattern within myself ever since my grandma died. I am more sensitive to death. When I hear about a death – even some fictionalized ones, I have a different kind of reaction than I used to have. Before Grandma died I reacted to death with an intellectual type of sadness. Some thing like “Oh, that’s too bad for the family.” Now I have a personal understanding of the emptiness that death leaves in its wake and my reaction is more of an emotional “I know something of what that feels like.”

I understand that each death we face strikes us differently. I am sure that losing my wife or losing one of my children would be a much different experience than losing my grandma, but I have now experienced that vacuum that death universally leaves and I can see that it has changed me. I gives me more ability to understand the loss of others. Leave it to God to make something positive out of something that we all see as not positive.

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life

Life

I spoke about life overcoming death. It just occurred to me that we have another instance of life replacing death as the focus of our existence. Later this year we will have another life to think about.

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life

Aftermath

I have been thinking about this whole process of death and grieving since Grandma’s death. I am amazed with how unpredictably predictable it has been. If you had asked me to predict two months ago – before Grandma was even ill – what it would be like for my grandma to die I would have said that I would be sad but functional for quite a while. I would have said that my grief would not be exhibited as visible emotion.

Now that the funeral is over and I am able to look back (from close proximity) I am amazed to find how much the weight of Grandma’s death was exhibited as outward emotion. I was also amazed to discover that it could not really be categorized as sadness. Even after such a brief illness it was a relief for her to be released from her pain. The other amazing thing is that the grief seems to be over so soon after the funeral.

What I learned, in essence, is that there is a whole lot of therapeutic value in attending the funeral and processing the grief and pain in concert with others who are sharing the loss in common with you. This may not be completely over for me, but it is certainly no longer at the forefront of my mind – life has once again replaced death in my thoughts.

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life

Finished

I enjoyed reading Hyrum’s posting on Pain a few days ago. I thought I would offer the final correction. Last night Grandma died. She had had enough of the pain and finally it was over. The doctors kept getting mixed results as some things would get better and others would get worse. In the end she had developed a fever which had no detectable cause – she was just done.

I’m glad that her pain is over. I’m sure I will revisit this many times before I have fully integrated it into my life. It is nice to know what is of real value in this life. I am able to take joy in my family just as Grandma had taken joy in her family for her entire life.

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life

Mortality

I have been riding an interesting emotional roller-coaster in the last few days. My grandmother – who has had her share of health problems in the last few years but is really very healthy considering her age – was diagnosed with a type of pneumonia. She has been in the hospital, and while she will probably recover, it was looking questionable for a time.

For the first time, I had to seriously consider the imminent death of someone close to me. I have had people die that I was related to, but none that I knew really well. The emotional reaction was strong. Laura tried to comfort me, expressing her sorrow for my pain, but that only forced me to consider what I was feeling. As a pragmatist, I accept death as a natural part of live. It is not truly a tragedy for a good person to die after a long and full life – especially if the death also brings a cessation of pain to that person. I was not feeling fear, despite the fact that I have never experienced the death of someone so close to me before. I discovered how natural and unstoppable the sorrow and pain of loss is when death approaches (even before it arrives in cases like this). The thing that I realized is that the pain is healthy, and spurs the healing process, so long as we let the pain pass through us, rather than holding on to it as if it was all that was left of our loved one.

Part of my sorrow was that I have just moved far from my grandmother, so I feel a little more helpless and out of touch that I had previously. I guess that’s okay too. I am living my life just as she would wish me to do. She certainly would not want me to be paralyzed by her health.