Death and Survivors

[mikeeh]

So here I am rapidly approaching the end of year two and I still don't think I can understand death.  I still can't quite wrap my head around the idea that she is gone. 

 

Actually is turning into having a hard time believing she ever really existed.

 

So as I wrestle with this concept of death and being a survivor, a left behind, something happened that made me think about another angle.

 

I had an Uncle die the other day.  No sympathies needed sine I haven't seen him or any of his family for probably close to 40 years and didn't see much of him before that.  We weren't close.  I just found out from his obit that he was a twin with an aunt that died a very long time ago that I barely knew.  That was a surprise. 

 

Then I had another eye opening surprise.  I thought my Mother's side of the family was getting through this life thing pretty good.  My many, many Aunts an Uncles on my father's side are dropping like flies.  Of course there are much more of them, my Father was one of 13.  My mother was only one of 5 and though I knew her one sister was gone and my mother has been gone for almost 20 years I thought that the rest were doing fine.  Then I see in the obituary that along with his wife and two daughters he is survived by only one brother.

 

How would it feel to be the last of your siblings to survive?  I haven't lost any yet, being one of 5 myself.  I also haven't talked to any of my siblings since about a month after my wife's funeral.  Those few who might know me know about how little support I got from them during my wife's illness.  Their indifference and absence is something I can't forgive, but it seems like only a matter of time before we start to drop like flies ourselves.  One brother had a cancerous kidney removed a couple years ago.  I have a terribly obese brother and sister whose hearts must be ticking time bombs.  How will I react when they start to go, and how hypocritical of me would it be to pretend to care after years of ignoring them the way they did us.

 

But even in a family that isn't close what would it be like to be the last surviving member of your generation of your family?  Not as debilitating and overwhelming as losing a spouse but it is just a whole new side of death, a concept that I already can't wrap my head around.

[BrokenHeart2]

Hey Mikeeh

I hadn't really thought about it having 5 siblings of my own. They too have not provided much support since losing my DH. I'm indifferent right now as to how I'd feel and the saddens me tremendously. I used to think we were close but have felt so abandoned by all of them.  My mothers 4 brothers live near by and I have heard nothing from any of them in the past 2 yrs. whatever, that hurt too.  DH had 1 and and 1 uncle left and they call every couple of months to see how I am. God bless them. Thinking of you as this 2 yr sadiversary approaches.

[Virgo]

Death is unpredictable. In my family it seems as though the more you poison and torture your body the longer you live, seriously. I would never assume that I'll live longer than my brother even though I live a healthier lifestyle. If he did die before me I would be sad. My brother and I aren't close, as in speaking to each other daily, but we have a decent relationship. I learned not to expect certain things from him, and decided to try to accept him for who he is. Not for him, but for me. Of course I still get aggravated at times, but I make an effort to let it go instead of letting it fester.

[luvmy2babies]

I have a brother and a sister.  We share a father only and didn?t grow up together and partially because of that my sister and I actually lost touch for a bit.  Thank goodness for the internet, we were reunited actually just a couple of years before dh passed.  My brother is in his late 30s.  He lives half way across the country and we don?t see each other as much as we?d like.  My sister lives just 2 hours away thankfully.  She and I are both in our early 40s; but she had her children early and me a bit later so she has grandchildren the same age as my children. 

 

The three of us are quite close.  She just went through a year of cancer treatments and is in the ?recovery from the treatments please don?t let the cancer come back? phase.  So I?ve had plenty of opportunity to think about losing her.  It?s a heartbreaking thought, more than my own pain; that her daughters and grandchildren, her mom, our dad would suffer and her other siblings.  She was in remission the last time we went to see her and I still cried off and on for hours after we got back home.  And I know as much as I love her, part of it is, "Please not another loss" mentality.

[Mizpah]

I think often what it would be like to be, say, the only surviving person from your town after the Holocaust.  (There's a book, For Those I Loved, by Martin Gray - survivor, then years later his new wife and kids died in a terrible fire.  How did he go on?)  Or has anyone heard Maurice Sendak's interview with Terry Gross, or read about it?  He didn't want to live any longer because it hurt too much to miss everyone, and he hoped she wouldn't die, because he didn't want to miss her too. 

 

In the abstract, even, it's inconceivable.  Birth to me is just as inconceivable though - I have sex, and nine months later, there is an existence and an individual that just comes about out of nothing (cells, yes, I know the science, and I'm not religious).  After DH died, I realized just how little my mind could conceive of non-existence - how the entirety of what a person is just ends/disappears.