Multiple Losses

[KATPILOT]

I remember when I made that phone call to my father in law to tell him that his daughter was gone. My darling wife, his daughter, succumbed to cancer and he was so far away, too old to travel, and said his last goodbye when she and I boarded the air ambulance from Calgary to Phoenix. Five days later, I made that call and though I never had seen him cry before, his tears that night joined mine.

No parent should see their child go before them but it happens all the time. Today I read something that brought it all back. It was from a father who lost his wife and baby daughter many years ago and left him with two boys to raise. Now one of his sons has died of cancer and so it goes on............. grief I can't even imagine as I think of my own losses.

"There will come a day - I promise you, and your parents as well - when the thought of your son or your daughter or your husband or wife,

brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye.

It will happen"

Joe Biden

[kayc]

Stephen,

I am sorry this is all come back to you like that, I know how that is. I had a very near scare Tuesday when we nearly lost my DIL & (first) grandchild due to complications in birthing. Thank God mine had a happy ending, but the close call shook us all up like nothing else! The fact that many don't just have a close call but lose their loved ones hits home to me as I have also suffered many such losses...grandparents, aunts & uncles, parents, a niece, a nephew, three of my earliest pregnancies, many dogs & cats, and the very hardest, my husband. With each loss I think a new facet is carved on the rough diamond of our life, giving us lessons and dimension heretofore nonexistent...but oh how hard the price that shaping brought!

You're right, no one should have to outlive their child, it feels unnatural, we expect them to outlive us.

[KATPILOT]

^{So true kayc. I'm glad things worked out for your DIL. Hope you find grandchildren as joyful as I have.}

[kayc]

My only regret is how far away they are, I won't be in her everyday life as much as I'd like. But I hope she views "going to grandma's" as something positive during her lifetime.

[Guest]

As much as I dislike Joe Biden, I can't help but feel so very sad for him and his family. I know the pain, and it's unbearable some days, and numbing on others.

This weekend a young waitress died in a car accident here, and she lost her sister just a few months ago, so her family has been on all of our minds. Ever since I lost my son in January, it feels like I notice and feel every family's losses so much more than before. I suppose that in the long term that the increased empathy is good, but I didn't want to know how they feel.

[kayc]

When I hear about such tragedy in the news, even though I don't know the family, it hits me because I know the feelings that come with it. My sister was in a tragic car accident when she was 25, killing her three year old son and making her a quadriplegic and damaging my other sister's balance for life. Everything in my life became a "before and after" of that point in time. From then on, whenever I saw a car accident or after one happened, it hit me and took me back to that moment when I first saw my sister's car destroyed and the baby's bed on the freeway (we were about 1/2 hour behind them). You see, we now know what it's like so when we hear of another's tragedy, we feel for them in a way we couldn't have known before.

[Guest]

Exactly.

[KATPILOT]

I think our ears hear of death more acutely once we've been there. Like you say kayc, I too when watching news stories of families I don't even know, I feel so deeply for their anguish. I find myself drawn to people I meet who I discover have lost someone like there was some bond. It's almost like we were thrown into a lifeboat together and I wonder how insensitive I was earlier in life when those same people were all around me, holding up a brave face, trying to go about their lives. Now that I am on the other side, I never feel bad if someone doesn't "get it" and appears insensitive to where I am. They just haven't joined this club yet.

[MartyT]

So true, dear Stephen. A wise colleague once said that grief is a matter of taking turns. Today it may be our turn, but sooner or later -- tomorrow, next month or next year -- it will be someone else's turn. One of the most valuable lessons of loss, I believe, is that we learn to be more compassionate toward others when their turn comes. ♥