05 September, 2020

Death Blog

I give up. 

I'll embrace it.

I'll become a Death Blog. Or "Grief Blog" if you prefer.

Only because the times that I feel like writing, the times that the words start actually flowing, are the times that I am thinking about, dealing with, or remembering death or grief-related things.

Today, I received a message from my sister's closest friend from high school. They had not been in frequent contact of late, but regular contact nonetheless, and she only now heard about my sister's death last January. 

I'm actually touched that she reached out to me. There are two other siblings between myself and my dead sister, siblings whom she knew - probably better than she knew me. So the fact that she contacted me to say, "Wth? I had just talked to her January 1st. She was feeling better!" means something.

I guess ... I win? Maybe my sister talked more about me than the others? Or maybe mentioned that we had become close in recent years? Of course, this random message came during the day in Asia, so maybe she'd sent equivalent messages to my brother and sister and I was the first responder. Who knows?

It was a welcome chat. 

This friend had lost her uncle the day before my sister died, so she took time for her own grief and now has a fresh wound to assess.

But don't we all? I mean, you can't help when you find out about things that happened while you were looking in another direction. These days we are all dealing with our own stuff to the extent of blocking out the rest of the world. Necessarily, I believe.

There are too many deaths, too many issues, too many problems, too many isolated frustrations, for any one person to tackle them all. All we can do is whatever we have the strength and energy for in each given moment. No harm, no foul.

Be you. Take care of you. Take care of others when you can. That's the honesty of 2020.

7 comments:

  1. It's good she reached out to you. We all have our own things going on, so it's easy to miss out on the tragedies of others. I'm sorry you don't feel like blogging except when it regards death, but maybe this is just your space for that right now. It's been a rather weird year, so we're all figuring out our new normals.

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    1. True. Everyone really does have heavy stuff right now. I hope that makes it easier for people to speak with kindness and understanding, knowing the people around you are in the same boat.

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  2. Anyone who does not carry death with them is someone who has not lost someone. I stopped writing about two years ago over grieving for something tragic in someone's life that I felt so much sorrow over. And like many, procrastination played a role as time wore on.

    I lost a brother as I commented on an earlier post of yours. I was incredibly close to this brother and I know I will never totally not grieve for him. He was a huge part of my life.

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    1. You're right. Especially the older we get, we've all met with death somehow. I think of my two little nieces who now will get to carry that through their whole life. Again, hopefully it breeds compassion, but we're all human. I like to think with compassion but I know that in the spur of the moment I'm not always kind.

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  3. I haven't had to deal with death much, a father when I was young and barely remember and a grandfather recently that I loved and miss. I have a few things of his that I see most days and I still grieve in a way 4 or 5 years later. I don't know that you ever really get over it, it may get easier but it never goes away. I have days when I think of my father and he passed in 1981.

    It's your blog, write about what you NEED to write about. If it helps to grieve by putting in on your blog, than do it! None of your regular readers will complain and it wouldn't matter if they did. You do you.

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    1. Thanks. Yeah, I don't feel like I'm in "grief mode" like I did back when everyone else was getting used to Covid, but it's still a big subject to just drop.

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