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retrofade

Dealing with loss

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I received a phone call from my mom at about 9:40am this morning... which was 6:40am back in California. I knew that something was wrong, because she never calls me that early.

She told me that my grandma died last night, and was found by her sister who was staying with her this week. She was 85 and had lost her husband over the summer, but was otherwise in relatively good health. 

I then had to call my son and his mom (who was close with my grandma) to tell them what happened. What happened afterward was something that no amount of parental "training" ever prepared me for.... talking to your child about death. His mom called out from work and called him out of school today, so he's been texting me asking about death, what happens when people die, and everything associated with death. My step-daughter is home sick today and has been asking very similar questions all morning long. It has been a really difficult day, and it isn't even noon yet. 

How have y'all dealt with these types of situations? 

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I remember getting the call from my sister.  I knew something was wrong but could not understand her.  I told her to hang up, compose herself, and call me back.  Turns out my mom had unexpectedly passed.  It hurts.  It hurts less over time.  I am not sure what you tell your kids if your family does not have any sort of faith tradition.  I know we told the kids in our family to remember them and the the good times and good things they enjoyed.  It was ok to be sad, but to also be happy about having had them in their lives.  We focused on happy and funny stories to kind of get it out.  We also talked about our religious beliefs, which regardless of your opinion of religion, really helps soften the blow.

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21 minutes ago, retrofade said:

I received a phone call from my mom at about 9:40am this morning... which was 6:40am back in California. I knew that something was wrong, because she never calls me that early.

She told me that my grandma died last night, and was found by her sister who was staying with her this week. She was 85 and had lost her husband over the summer, but was otherwise in relatively good health. 

I then had to call my son and his mom (who was close with my grandma) to tell them what happened. What happened afterward was something that no amount of parental "training" ever prepared me for.... talking to your child about death. His mom called out from work and called him out of school today, so he's been texting me asking about death, what happens when people die, and everything associated with death. My step-daughter is home sick today and has been asking very similar questions all morning long. It has been a really difficult day, and it isn't even noon yet. 

How have y'all dealt with these types of situations? 

I’m sorry for your loss Retro.   I think how you deal with it is case specific.   I lost my dad at 60 when my kids were 2-3.  It still makes me sad today.   I lost my Grandfather at 91.   He told me he was ready to go and see his wife and friends.   When I think of his death I smile as he went out on his terms.   My prayers are with you and your family.

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So sorry for you loss Retro!  I lost my Dad when I was 27 and he was the ripe old age of 48 - from pancreatic cancer.  My daughters were 5 and 18 months, too young to understand anything.  When my youngest was 5 and my oldest 9, their 13 year old cousin killed himself.  That was a tough one with my oldest.  That same summer,one of my 5 year old's friends was killed in a boating accident up at Payette Lake.  She knew her cousin and her friend weren't around but didn't understand why.  By the next death, they were both old enough to understand it and mourned just like the rest of us.  The worst was when my daughter was stationed at Okinawa and with in a year's period, five people had died in our family.  By the fifth death, command let her have 10 day liberty to come home and attend my aunt's memorial.  When my cousin saw her in her dress blues at the memorial, he started crying (he was a corpsman on the green side).  

Prayers for you and your family!!!

 

 

 

 

 

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I'm sorry for your loss buddy, I'll be praying for you and your family tonight at church. I had a really strong bond with my great grandmother who passed away in 2008 when I was still a student at Fresno State and during finals week no less. I wanted to come down, but my parents were adamant about me staying up there to finish my exams before coming down for the funeral. My grandfather was devastated and it was the first time in my life I've ever seen him show any kind of emotion about anything. After her funeral my grandfather went into a deep depression and he slowly deteriorated over the next 5 years before passing away in 2013.

He had some health problems (developed but treated for melanoma from working at the San Diego Naval Shipyard back in the 50's), but we all believed he died of a broken heart from losing his mom. He never wanted to leave the house after that and instead sat in his recliner and watched his westerns and war movies all day. That was the first time I really learned about what depression could really do to someone, but I know in my heart that when he passed away he was reunited with her and my great grandfather as a family again. Now that my grandfather is gone, my grandmother is starting to go down the same road, so I'm trying to get her out of the house as much as possible. She is developing early stages of alzheimers which is adding whole new challenges, but our family is rallying around for support.          

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Losing family is just plain hard.   You have already taken the first healing step by talking it out. We wish you and your family the best.

Even though i came from a huge extended family....i had not lost anyone even a bit close until i was 45 yrs old.

Then inside of 16 months, mom, dad in their 80s died of cancer.  Then my brother-in-law and good friend killed himself, and then i helplessly watched my best friend drink himself to death.

It put me in a serious funk for a year when i realized how close had grown to these people.   It was near debilitating....things haunt me to this day.  Its easy to not take it seriously.  15 yrs later....i think i have mostly recovered.   It changes you.

 

 

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5 hours ago, retrofade said:

I received a phone call from my mom at about 9:40am this morning... which was 6:40am back in California. I knew that something was wrong, because she never calls me that early.

She told me that my grandma died last night, and was found by her sister who was staying with her this week. She was 85 and had lost her husband over the summer, but was otherwise in relatively good health. 

I then had to call my son and his mom (who was close with my grandma) to tell them what happened. What happened afterward was something that no amount of parental "training" ever prepared me for.... talking to your child about death. His mom called out from work and called him out of school today, so he's been texting me asking about death, what happens when people die, and everything associated with death. My step-daughter is home sick today and has been asking very similar questions all morning long. It has been a really difficult day, and it isn't even noon yet. 

How have y'all dealt with these types of situations? 

Retro, condolences. Clearly, your grandmother meant a lot to your family. Since my kids have been born, their two great-grandfathers have past away. The most recent loss was right before the start of the holiday season. My 2nd grader asked  questions about death. We answered his questions in the best possible manner that would not freak him out. I think what helped my wife and I, we didn't sit down and have deep conversation about it. If he asked a question while I was loading the dishwasher, we discussed it causally as I continued to load. Same if he asked while we were driving to the grocery store. I think that keeping it a casual conversation, made him analyze it as something that's a normal part of life. We also referenced movies like Coco. It's tough, though. There is no manual for this.

Good luck and know that your kids' questions will be just as good for you to heal as for them to understand life.

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One day at a time brother.

 

And one hug at a time.

 

get well hug GIF

 

 

"We don't have evidence but, we have lot's of theories."

Americans Mayor

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My sincere condolences, retro. My maternal grandmother and fraternal grandfather both died before I was born. In both cases it was the Big C.

I've lost too many family and friends to count. May God, whatever that may be, bless them all.

Boom goes the dynamite.

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11 hours ago, retrofade said:

I received a phone call from my mom at about 9:40am this morning... which was 6:40am back in California. I knew that something was wrong, because she never calls me that early.

She told me that my grandma died last night, and was found by her sister who was staying with her this week. She was 85 and had lost her husband over the summer, but was otherwise in relatively good health. 

I then had to call my son and his mom (who was close with my grandma) to tell them what happened. What happened afterward was something that no amount of parental "training" ever prepared me for.... talking to your child about death. His mom called out from work and called him out of school today, so he's been texting me asking about death, what happens when people die, and everything associated with death. My step-daughter is home sick today and has been asking very similar questions all morning long. It has been a really difficult day, and it isn't even noon yet. 

How have y'all dealt with these types of situations? 

Sorry for your loss, dude. It’s easily the toughest thing a human being ever has to face being it themselves or loved ones. When I was about 16 in HS I lost 3 good friends all within a year, and it really just messed my whole outlook on everything, for the worse. I was going to a Lutheran Church youth group that my mom pressured me to go to even though it wasn’t a “cool” thing to be involved with per my other peers, but it did help me sort things out. 

People also beat themselves up on destiny. “If I had only done this instead of that, that person would still be alive.” When I was going to SDSU, I came home for the weekend to the high desert, and I saw a friends car down the street at his gf’s. He was a frosh at college in LA and she was still a senior in HS. The next day I heard he took off to go back to school and died in a head-on collision just 15 minutes out of town. A surgeon happened to be right there, but his abdomen was just ripped so wide open it was hopeless. When I checked the accident times, he was only about 8-10 minutes behind me. If I had just stopped by for a quick hello, it never would’ve happened. 

I’m getting up there in age and as the prophet Lou Gramm once said, “It feels like the first time” whether it’s intensely good or bad, it never gets easier when it happens. Time is always your friend though, getting over things. If there wasn’t space where there’s no up or down, and no ending, I couldn’t believe in God. But space and God are two things I’ve learned to believe in and accept as being too massive to get my head around to really understand from our daily world perspective, so I deal with death more religiously these days, and it’s a lot better than the alternative. 

kat.jpg

 

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Sorry to hear about your loss. I would say maybe address the grief head on and don’t try to brush it off quickly and convince yourself “you’re good”. I lost my mom a month after I graduated from SJSU and I don’t think I handled it well; I kind of pushed it out of my head after a couple days but then for a long time after random things that reminded me of my mom would make me extremely emotional. Took a while for me to be able to be reminded of my mom without getting emotional, and maybe had I did some therapy right after I could have avoided that.

A similar thing happened when I lost a good friend. My name does have to do with me having lived in Salinas and being a Spartan, but I also chose this name as something of an homage to my friend after he was murdered in 2014; at the time he was playing for a semipro team named the Salinas Spartans. Me and my buddies did the whole gather around and remember the good times kind of thing the next few days without talking about any deep stuff. Then about a week later we all got together at a bar in Downtown Monterey that we would go to a lot, and then I started thinking about how the last time I had seen him was at that bar just a week earlier and I came close to breaking down, but my friend was able calm me down. We had a drunken convo about how sad this all was and it 
 

Anyways, tldr is I’d suggest talking to someone. 

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@retrofade I too am sorry for your loss. My Grandfather died on my 10th birthday, that was creepy. My Grandmother made it to 100 and then died two weeks later. My Dad died when I was 17, and my Mom died 12 years ago. So unfortunately, I know a lot about dealing with loss. My advice to you is to honor those you've lost by making the most out of the time you have. Think positive, stay busy and help others whenever you can. :) Best wishes to you and your family.

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I spent the last week out in California to help everyone out and be there for her memorial service. I had to go through her will and determine what actions we needed to take for both her estate and her trust. Ended up spending way too much time on the phone with the IRS, lawyers, and her financial firms last week. I finally figured out that I needed to get EINs for both the trust and the estate and get them to the different financial firms and lawyers so things could start to be taken care of. My mom and uncles were on the verge of giving away all sorts of information to a scam website before I could stop them and then spent a few days figuring it out on my own instead.

Then I was working with my parents and uncles to start getting stuff around the house taken care of... replacing door knobs, lights, and other random fixtures for the most part. On top of that, I caught a nasty +++++ing cold (after having just gotten over one a few days before flying out), and ended up with bronchitis, so I had to go to the doctor on Saturday and get a z-pack. It was good to see so much of my extended family, but the circumstances were certainly shitty.

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