Dying is easy, it’s living that scares me to death
Ever since I heard the verse 'Dying is easy it's living that scares me to death' by Annie Lennox it has remained in my semi- unconscious thoughts. At various times throughout my life, things would happen, and the verse would pop into my conscious thoughts only to fade away again. Only to surface again with vengeance.
In roughly a three-year period, I have watched my father, mother and brother fight a losing battle with death. When I lost my dad, I never really had a chance to mourn his death because I had to care for my mom. They had been married nearly 70 years and mom was just lost without my dad. Prior to my dad’s death and due to mom's progression through the various stages of dementia they had moved into an assisted living facility. And after he passed, I didn't want my mom to forget who I was so, I participated in her life at the facility and thankfully she didn't forget me. After my mom passed away, I was so lost, I didn't even know how to mourn my mother's death. I had spent so many years caring for my parents and now I had nowhere to be and no one to care for. And parental caregiving doesn't transfer over well to spousal caregiving especially when your spouse is healthy 😊
I was working through the loss of my parents, beginning to figure out who I was again, what I wanted to do and doing it. In fact, my husband and I had just returned from a two in a half month adventure in our RV only to discover that my brother had brain cancer. I was like… what I just saw him he was fine (or so we all thought). I had high hopes for my brothers recovery but those were quickly dashed as his tumor was not responding to any of his treatments.
After each loss the verse 'Dying is easy it's living that scares me to death' was floating around in my semi-unconscious thoughts until the third day after my brother's death. That is when I realized I had lost my entire family in a three years. I was not sure how to go on living without my family, and I was scared to death. I wasn't really angry, yet I felt that by them dying, they didn't have the scary feelings of being by themselves, they were together ~ I was the one scared, lost, alone and living 💔
While there was no one book to help me figure out how to mourn my family, especially due to the nature and short time frame. I realized that everyone handles death differently and each loss is unique ~ I mourned both my parents differently and my brother was a completely different type of mourning. No one can tell you how to mourn, that is up to you because we all have our own emotions and memories to deal with. Therefore, the grieving/mourning process for me was/is different. And I don’t believe that time heals or with time it will get better. I believe as time passes we find moments of peace and comfort that enable us to get through each moment, hour or day but our heart is still broken ~ there is still a hole in our hearts, a missing piece.
While I am still working on rediscovering myself, I am also beginning to truly mourn my family, each one in their own way. And I feel the loss of my brother was harder to deal with than the death of my parents. I knew at some point my parents would pass, but that didn't make it any easier. On the other hand, my brother was my partner in rebelling against our parents, he should be here to grow old with me. I went back and listened to Annie Lennox's song Cold, where the verse comes from, and the words are helping me mourn.
In some ways, I still feel that 'Dying is easy it's living that scares me to death' yet. I am thankful that my family is not suffering anymore, they are together at peace. I miss them beyond words and some days my heart is so heavy with sorrow, I ache just to hear their voice or laughter one more time. Those are the days I find comfort and peace within my family memories 💖
Peace & Love