Your Experience Of Death? (mystic, funeral, elder, attend, Christians)

[w00t]

Death affects us all in different ways, I am fortunate that so far the deaths of relatives, my maternal grandmother, father and uncles, haven't caused me terrible grief. They we all elderly and had been ill for a while before they died, so their deaths were more of a relief than anything else. I was very, very fond of my materal grandmother, even though she wasn't the touchy feely sort of grandma. When her stroke meant she would need personal care, I was willing her to die. To have anyone attend to her very personal needs, was a fate worse than death for Grancie!

At the beginning of this year my husband was critically ill after his brain haemorrhage, and we all thought, including his doctors, that he would die. I even planned his funeral! I surprised myself by how calm I was at the prospect of him dying, even though I love him to pieces and have been married for 38 years. I think the idea of him being consigned to the corner of a nursing home and needing complete and constant care was a fate I wouldn't wish on anyone, certainly not him! Fortunately, by some miracle he not only survived, he went on to make a very good recovery, albeit with some level of disablity.

I am not sure how I would really react if my husband, children or grandchildren died, probably a lot differently to the way I reacted to the deaths of my elderly relatives. I certainly hope I don't have to go through the experience to find out!

Do Christians, who think they have a certainty, about the afterlife grieve less than those who do not have that certainty?

[MysticSang'ha]

I doubt it. My mother-in-law was terrified when she was in hospice shortly before her death from cancer. And her family - all very devout Lutheran Christians - were a wreck. Her death was an emotional disaster for the whole family: terror, anger, overwhelming depression and sadness.........

I believe that grief hits us in very surprising ways due to the fact that death is universal. Not to mention that our culture in many ways either hides aging and death with our fascination with youth or trivializes it to the point of being entertainment in movies or games.

We do have at least one member here at RF who has done extensive work in grief counseling, and perhaps would be able to shed more light on this topic. I only have personal experience to go by.




Peace,
Mystic

[Random]

Death is Transformation, that is all. It is not to be feared, and the things of this world left behind without the wishing to retain them. That is the divine way. All things change.