Yeah, strange title, I know. But honestly, I wasn’t really sure how else to put it. It does. It really does. I guess what spurred this post right at this time is a couple of deaths I encountered recently. One was the death of my mom’s best friend. She passed away last week. (I don’t know why I always tend to try to use “passed away” instead of “died”. It’s not like it’s any different either way. I guess it just sounds less harsh to me. Death’s a harsh reality, so maybe it makes it a bit softer? Not really. Anyway.) Apparently, she hadn’t been too healthy lately. Getting old kind of sucks sometimes too. But I remember spending a lot of time with her and her husband when I was a kid. They were my parents’ best friends, and they hung out with us quite a bit. They had known my parents’ since high school and were practically an aunt and uncle to me. My parents’ didn’t do the whole “godparents” thing, but if they did, I have no question that this couple would have been my godparents for sure. The guy passed away (there, I did it again) in 2004, and that had been difficult. He was a really cool guy. They never had any kids, but they were great with them. He was always a fun person to talk to. He was pretty into cars, and had this really neat slot car racetrack set up in his basement that I remember playing with as a kid. They were just a really neat couple. Everyone loved them. I know he has been really missed for a while now, and his wife will be now too. Especially by my mom.
The second thing that has this on my mind is the death of a good friend of mine’s dad yesterday. It sounds like it was pretty sudden and he had some health issues that didn’t really come up until pretty recently. I really felt for her when I saw her post about his death on Facebook. Losing a parent… well, there’s not really anything you can compare it to. And there’s no way to know what it feels like until it happens to you. There’s not really any way to prepare yourself for it. And there’s not any way to “get over” it. It basically just creates this hole in your life that will be there from then on. You don’t get rid of the hole, you just get used to it being there. It never gets any smaller. You just learn how to live with it. It will always hurt, you just figure out out to live with it hurting. Life goes on despite the pain.
I’m not really sure of the point of this post, other than just to articulate what I have been feeling. Losing loved ones changes you, especially losing a parent. There’s just no way to prepare yourself for the death of one of the people that brought you into this world and raised you. I know my friend will be ok, but I also know she’s forever changed now. I guess for me this scene from Grey’s Anatomy just sums it up. I know I’ve posted it before, but here it is again. Welcome to the dead dads club. I seem to have several friends that have been inducted into it now as well, and it pretty much sucks. But the rest of us members will do our best to help you through.
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