Trying To Minimize The Trauma Of Losing A Family Member Or Loved One
Posted: Monday, September 24, 2007
by Joel Hendon
http://hebronics.org/index.html
As a youngster, I once heard an old family friend of ours say that he believed his love for people, animals, and especially those people very dear to him, was deeper and stronger than most. I thought, somewhat, that the statement sounded a bit self-centered and unlike his normal character. But he explained it by saying that many people are able to accept the passing of members of their family, or anyone else with relative ease, when it simply devastated him. I then began to understand what he meant, and as the years past, I became positive of what he had tried to say. It may seem that way to most people, and certainly has to me. I am convinced that there are many who can simply control their emotions better than others. I have personally gone through at least three stages of emotion control, for mostly unexplainable reasons, unless the increasing numbers of such events may cause it.
The next episode occurred only a few months later. My paternal grandfather had been widowed for several years, married another woman who was wicked and treated him terribly (although some of it may have been justifiable) and they divorced after a few months. He became very sullen and difficult even with his children. He lived with us some of the time and would get angry at something and move into a small renter house on our place some 200 yards away. He seemed to have no oneexcept me. He loved me and never acted as he did with others and I, in turn loved him very much. We kept some hogs in a pen near the renter house and an older brother fed those hogs daily and always checked on Grandpa when he was down there. One morning, he walked up to the front door which was open, and found Grandpa laying on a folded quilt on the floor with a hole in his chest from a 12 gauge shotgun. He had whittled a notch in the end of a two foot stick, had sat on the quilt, placed the muzzle of the gun against his chest and pushed the trigger. This may have been the most traumatic event of my life. I was in no way, prepared for such. In those days, bodies were not kept in the funeral home but in their home, or in this case, ours. I won't go into the details, but I'll never forget the next two daysthe mourning of his children as they came, neighbors sitting up all night with the corpse, the funeral and all. This time I do remember that I crieda lot.
The year I turned twelve years old, World War 2 was getting into full swing and my three oldest brothers were in military service. There were eight of us siblings, five boys and three girls. My mother was strong although the concern for her boys was taking a toll on her nerves. One day we received a special delivery letter saying that her son (second oldest) had been flown back to the states from Greenland having been through an extreme round with a hemorrhaging peptic ulcer. But that he was improving and would be home soon. And a few weeks later, indeed he was, although pale and in a weakened condition. Everyone was elated to have him home and he seemed to improve well for a couple of months when he became ill with pneumonia. My father rushed him to the VA hospital but he died about a week later diagnosed with pneumonia and pleurisy. Our family was always very close and needless to say, this was most devastating. My older brothers were controlling their emotions well and I found it so very difficult to maintain their level of demeanor but I tried. I do recall that I broke down a couple of times.
All of the above occasions were heart rending and there is little that one can do to ease the pain, yet in time the pain will diminish and life will go on. Most people adapt to their life without those who have gone quite well although in some it requires counseling and/or medication. But there are instances which are even more devastating, or they have been in my own life.
The premature death of my father was one of the most difficult to face and accept as true, occasions in my life. He was a slender, extremely hard working man who was sick very rarely, and professed that he had never had a headache. He was a short spoken man who had little difficulty controlling his children because of the gruffness. He didn't talk a lot, but when he said something, we knew he meant it. The lack of communicating with his children and the tone of his requests or commands caused some distance between him and some of the kids. It didn't bother me that much, because I was able to read him better. I saw many evidences that he loved us all dearly and even noted some times when I could tell that he longed to be able to be closer with us. I loved him dearly as I had my grandfather, and he recognized it.
One winter, he became ill and, having an aversion to medical doctors, insisted that none be called, that he would be alright. After several days and his condition worsened, we summoned a doctor to the house. (This was still in the days when doctor's made house calls and no one went to a hospital until in a dying mode) The doctor diagnosed his problem as pneumonia and gave him a shot of penicillin. He also left a syringe and a bottle of this antibiotic and instructed me and my mother as to how to give it to him. After a few days of this routine, his condition still not improving, we again had the doctor to come and he said that he could not understand why he was not responding and said he knew nothing more to do. He recommended that we move him to a hospital if possible, which we did and after a few days tests, they determined that he had leukemia which was causing him to be unable to overcome the pneumonia. After some blood transfusions, he improved greatly and the pneumonia cleared up. However the doctors warned us that the leukemia was advanced and active so the prospect of his survival was very slight.
And they were right. After a brief show of improvement, he became worse and soon lost his lucidity and talked irrationally. Someone had to sit with him day and night. It fell my lot to sit every day since I had been working with him and now was free during the day. The others took turns sitting at night. I've told you this story to put one remark in that I shall never forget. Although most of his speech was incoherent, one day a nurse came in and he said very clearly and with a bit of pride, "That's my boy there." Tears welled up in my eyes and they do to this day when I remember it, 57 years later. But Dad died on his 60 th birthday. This loss dealt with me entirely differently to those of the others. I was not only saddened at the loss of one I loved, but it was one whom I depended upon. One that could explain to me things that I did not understand. I felt as one might who found himself lost in some wilderness, or stranded on a deserted island. That feeling, like the pain, slowly but surely subsided.
I was 20 years old that year and since then, I have seen those pass away in this order: My mother some 15 years later, my oldest sister, my second oldest brother, my oldest brother, my sister just younger than he was, my brother just 3 years older than I. It would require too much space to try and describe them all, but each one hurt terribly and I experienced some of the emptiness and lonely feeling at the death of my mother that I did when my father died. But I've noticed a marked change in my ability to control my emotions. Perhaps it is simply age and the fact that we spend less time with our parents and siblings as we age.
There are other factors that enter in. My brother who passed away earlier this year was less than three years older than Iwe grew up together, worked together, played together, went to school together and needless to say, the closeness I felt towards him was unsurpassed by any of the others. But the poor guy's health got so bad, he had survived a massive heart attack some 35 years ago, but did very well until recent years, he developed diabetes, congestive heart failure, pulmonary fibrosis and diminished kidney functions. The last time I saw him alive, he was strapped to a bed with a respirator down his throat, the bed bouncing like a bucking bull, they said it was an effort to try and loosen the lung congestion that it might be drawn out. I was relieved in a couple of days when I heard they had removed all of that and he had died in about twenty minutes. When a 79 year old person has that much wrong with them, it is not worth the agony and distress to try that hard to prolong their lives, for only a few days and certainly not quality days at that.
So there is left only me and my younger sister. I think of my wife and children and pray often that I will be the next to go. They are all stronger than I and I believe they can handle it better. Now I leave you without a definitive explanation as to how to minimize the trauma of losing a loved one. I hear people say that to distance yourself from your close kin and even your children, will help. I don't believe that for one minute. My biggest regret in each case is that I did not do enough for, did not visit enough and did not tell them I loved them often enough. My advice to all is that very thing. If you have had hard feelings in your family, or with any others, make it up to them someway, learn to love them more, tell them so and do everything you can for them. And above all else, study the Holy Bible and strive to live according to it's truths. It will, at the least, give your family reason for hope.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Joel, I read your article this morning about the hillbillies and left a comment. Now reading this article I getting to know you quite well. I came from a family of eleven children. there are eight of us living today. 6 boys and two girls we have always been a close family. I'm the 10th. child of 11, almost the baby. I believe you would enjoy reading an article I wrote about my father. It's titled "Now there was a man" Would you check it out when you get a chance and leave a comment. thank youThanks David, for the comment. Yes there seems to have been several similarities in our younger lives. I, too was the next to last child born into our family. Large families were common back then I guess, I know they were around our area. I often wonder how some of them managed to feed so large a family during the days of the depression. We were fortunate enough to have a Dad who would work at anything and as long as it took, to keep our table furnished. He worked as a carpenter and brick mason when work was available and we, five boys farmed. We raised enough to feed ourselves and our livestock so that we had ample canned goods as well as cured meats to eat well. We didn't have a lot else but we did eat well. In fact, better than we eat now. Again, I thank you for the comment and I shall surely read your article.
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