Dealing with Sudden Death
Death is an uncomfortable topic for most of us and often a painful experience we struggle to make sense of and accept.
When I decided I wanted to launch my blog/podcast platform talking about death, I had no idea just how poignant that was going to be or how much death I was going to face.
As I began to birth this blog/podcast format with the expert help of my web person, I was really excited to tell him that my first offering was going to be about death. That felt relevant, deep, real, edgy, and universal. And true to my double Scorpio astrology, I have always been interested in all things mysterious, hard to explain, intense, hidden, or secret. I thrive on getting to the bottom of things and I’m really good at it most of the time. So talking about death didn’t seem that far out there if you know what I mean.
And what was about to happen in my life made this decision seem like psychic phenomena.
After finally moving to Charleston just 4 months prior, my longtime boyfriend, Mark, died suddenly. We had been together for 15 years even though a lot of that time was reluctantly spent apart with him living in one state and me in another. This wasn’t really what either of us wanted. But neither one of us could walk away. When we first met I remember him telling me that I was the last woman he was ever going to be with. And he was right. But for one reason or another, until Covid, we hadn’t made it a day to day reality for more than just a few months. And this wasn’t going to be any different.
Let me pull back to give you a broader view of just how much death showed up for me. It started 6 weeks before Mark’s death, with the death of my sister in law's mom. She was 90 something, a true matriarch who really loved my brother. No one in my family had met Mark, so I convinced him to go to the service with me. It was literally the first funeral he had ever attended even though his mother had passed years earlier. And it would be the only funeral he would ever attend.
Then one of my best friends from high school passed away without me even knowing she wasn’t well. I connected with a few friends from high school and found out she had been diagnosed with cancer at the beginning of the year and didn’t want anyone to know. That really hit home and made me really sad. I definitely spent some time reflecting on that and telling her I was sorry we had lost contact. But it inspired me to reconnect with my other best friends and do a better job of staying in touch.
Then my beloved Mark.
As soon as I got back from a gathering I arranged for Mark’s friends to come together and meet one of his sons who had come down from Canada, literally the next week, my favorite uncle passed. There was no way I could miss his service. I convinced my brother to go which made a huge difference for me. I’m not sure I could have done it alone. But the service was just incredible and it felt good to connect with my family and friends and spend time with my sister in law and nieces.
The last in this string of deaths was a vibrant, beautiful 24 year old woman I’d known since she was in the first grade with my youngest son, whose brother I considered to be my third son. It was a horrific car accident. Three deaths in one month. I was just numb. The visitation was really hard but I was encouraged by the faith and acceptance expressed by her family. The funeral was magnificent with a powerful message but what resonated with me the most was when the preacher asked God for comfort. That reached me deep inside. For whatever reason, it did not occur to me to ask God for comfort. He said, “Lord we know we have to go through this, we know we have to mourn and grieve, but Lord, please comfort us.” He also said we plan for life and we should also plan for death for there is no life without death. I realized as I stood graveside that both my uncle’s funeral and this one were also funerals for Mark.
It is said we are not given more than we can handle. I guess I didn’t realize how strong I was. I know I am still in my own grief process. But I am choosing to use that process to better understand myself and this life. As much as the mind wants to understand what happened, it never will. What I want is peace, peace in my heart and mind. I can tell any story I want about what has happened. That is true of anything that happens in our life. I’m not talking about making something up that didn’t happen. I’m talking about the way you choose to perceive what happens in your life. You’re always free to ask yourself whether your story about what has happened feels good or brings you peace? If it doesn’t, change it. You get to do that.
I know I am forever, profoundly changed. And I also know I called these changes in so I have more to offer others who want to work with me or have had a similar experience. Somewhere inside, I knew I could and would get through it all. Even before these deaths , I've had plenty of other death experiences. But never in my life has it been more clear to me how easy it would be to spin out into a haze of depression, addiction, anger, hopelessness and grief, given everything that was going on around me.
In my next post I’ll share the tools I used to deal with the stress and trauma of this sudden death.