Week 7-Dying and Spirituality
This weeks reading was the one reading I was not looking
forward to. The idea of dying has always
been an uncomfortable subject for me. I
have dealt with death since I was a child.
As a child I never really put too much thought into it. As I get older I think about it more and I
don’t always like my thoughts. I have
seen and had to deal with death in all different ways from loosing a classmate
right before our 8th grade year all the way to finding my father
after he passed away almost 8 years ago.
As for my father’s death I think I went through parts of distorted grief
as in I started doing things that my dad did every morning I even drove his
truck for a week or so. I also think I
went through complicated grief. I still
feel like I am going through it because new thoughts and feeling about his
death. The role of the visitation and
funeral was a big sore subject for my family and we still feel it is. My dad was cremated and we had a visitation
and a funeral. My grandmother, his mom,
was mad because she said that he and her have had talks about not wanting the
visitation. We did it not because of us,
but for everyone that knew my dad because he had died so suddenly. My grandmother never came and still we feel
it has caused a rift in our relationship.
The funeral was needed because like the book said it took the burden
away from us it also helped us and friends accept his death and start with the
grief process.
As
for my own death that is where the comfort level is low. I believe in God and am spiritual, but the
acceptance of death scares me. Maybe I
don’t have a complete belief of the afterlife.
I have been woken up from sleep because I have the feeling that when I
die I will fall asleep and not wake up.
I think a lot of this feeling is because of my age. I still feel I have a lot of life to live and
things I want to do. Maybe when I get
older I will be more accepting of death and the afterlife. The section of If I Had My Life to Live Over
is very interesting. I feel that we all
have something we do over. I am not too
sure if that is the healthiest thing to do.
Why not cherish what we had and have and not worry about things we can
not change.
Corey, I can relate all to well with you sharing about family rifts due to a death in the family. My uncle lived in Texas and died out there, and one of his wishes was to not have a funeral or viewing. His three children knew about this and expressed it to the rest of the family, but, the rest of the family had a mass for him and a dinner in the church basement after to have some sort of closure. It's been okay now, but, back then, I remember my cousins being so upset for going against their dad's wishes. But, some people need closure to grieve together, even if there is no physical body.
ReplyDeletevery moving post, Corey. I am sorry to hear about the deaths you have had to go through. I agree a lot with what you posted as far as death goes. I am too worried about death, and I think it is because there is still so much I want to see and do before I pass. I also question what exactly happens after we pass away. The only thing we can do is live today as if it is our last.
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