The Death of my grandmother a life experience that changed my Identity

Rhonda, a friend of Andy’s, writes about her most frightening moment for her English homework. She chooses to write about the accident, stating, “I thought we’d all come back for our reunions and then we'd get old, and then, when we're so old it doesn't matter anymore, we’d die. But he's dead already. I didn't think it was possible. And that's why it's so scary.” Like many people, Rhona has likely never experienced the death of a close one before in her life. So when death strikes, it’s overwhelming and people often don’t know how to react. Before my grandmother passed away, only distant relatives I barely knew had died, so this became the first time I lost someone I truly cared for. But, like Rhonda, I could never prepare myself for when she did die. It’s incredibly scary to lose someone you love, and it’s especially hard when you aren’t sure of how to deal with death. The author included this section to relate to the readers, because most of them know the scary and confusing feelings after someone you care for dies and you’re struck with the reality of mortality.

My grandmother, who is the mother of my mom, passed away due to heart failure at the age of 87. Since I was 6 or 7 she had been living in our house. The reason for that was, my grandfather, that I was named after passed away a year before I was born, so she was alone, and she was starting to get old. Since she lived with us for so many years, she had been a very important figure in my life. I can honestly say that she was like a 3rd parent for me, and losing her, made me fell horrible and helpless. I witnessed how real death is because of her passing. Combined with puberty, my grief caused me to become depressed for a long time. As I’m looking back it sounds really extreme, but there were some days that I did not even leave the bed thinking that there was no point to our existence. Thanks to some psychological counselling however, I was able to overcome that mental

Unresolved, complicated, prolonged, or traumatic grief can have detrimental effects on mental or physical health (Beischel, Mosher, Boccuzzi, 2014). This often leads to many individuals seeking understanding from psychics, friends, or their own emotions. However, post death contact may give the believed some sense of relief in the situation or even help them cope with the elements of death and dying, along with life and living, giving them a different perspective on death and a new outlook on life. Post Death Contact (PDC) is when a living individual feels that a person who is deceased is reaching out to connect with the living. Such experiences may be part of a model of grieving called Continuing Bonds (Klugman, 2006). In this model, a person does not get over or learn to forget about the deceased, instead he or she maintains a personal relational connection with an inner representation by using the body to connect.

Nader and Salloum (2011) made clear that, at different ages, children differ in their understanding of the universality, inevitability, unpredictability, irreversibility, and causality of death. They believed, despite the increasing understanding with age of the physical aspects of death, a child may simultaneously hold more than one idea about the characteristics of death. However, factors that complete the determining nature of childhood grieving across different age groups may be a difficult task for a number of reasons including their environment in means of the support they have available, the child’s nature in terms of their personality, genetics, and gender, coping skills and previous experiences, the developmental age, grieving style, whether or not therapy was received, and the relationship to the deceased (Nader & Salloum, 2011). Crenshaw (2005) found that according to our current understanding of childhood traumatic grief and normal grief, thoughts and images of a traumatic nature are so terrifying, horrific, and anxiety provoking that they cause the child to avoid and shut out these thoughts and images that would be comforting reminders of the person who died. The distressing and intrusive images, reminders, and thoughts of the traumatic circumstances of the death, along with the physiological hyper-arousal associated with such re-experiencing, prevent the child from proceeding in a healthy way with the grieving process (Crenshaw, 2005). McClatchy, Vonk, and

Grief is intense mental suffering or sorrow that is often caused by someone’s death. Grief is a way people cope with losing a loved one, however, not everyone grief the same way. Some grief for years and some grief for only a few weeks. For example, when my uncle was killed, I didn’t begin feeling the heaviness of his death until the weekend of his funeral. When I first heard about it I wasn’t bother much until I went to his house, saw his old room and picture, and actually being at the funeral. For weeks, I couldn’t sleep, but eventually things got better and I didn’t think of him much. But every now and then if I hear something that reminds me of him, brings me sorrow or I would dream about him. However, his death had a bigger effect on my

Overall, death is very difficult to express and even with the family as it is the most stressful event a person can experience. Death takes on emotional toll on the person. As it is highlighted in the scenario, Libby has faced complex psychological components and consequences in her end to life experience. The decisions that she had made has put her in a situation in regards to her children. Libby has excluded her family from talking about her body donation so she can maintain her autonomy and prevent the difficult discussion. The process of dying has put Libby in an emotional distress. She has managed her death through not being a burden and without hurting her loved ones. Libby concerns for her children have positioned her with discomfort.

It had been less than a week since we were told that my Great-Grandma was dead. We drove all the way to North Dakota for her funeral. When we got there, there was a casket with the pale, lifeless body inside. There was also a lot of people gathered for the funeral, which made a lot of sense considering that my Great-Grandma was 100 years old. After a waiting for while, we walked into a room where we were told how the funeral was going to go, but all I could think about is how real it felt that she was really gone and that I would never see her again. When we sat down in the chapel, I saw a picture of my Great-Grandma and inside my heart pounded and tears swelled. I held in my tears with all the strength I had, but when I saw the casket slowly

One thing that I truly believe, and have believed for years, is that even when people die, they’re never really gone. My first experience with death was when I was 7 and in kindergarten and my grandma had passed after a lengthy battle with cancer. I don’t remember much of her while she had cancer, but I do remember going up to her funeral after she had passed. Back then I was too young to get what death was, in fact, I don’t even remember ever crying about her death. Now,the reason I didn’t cry wasn’t because I didn’t love her, it was because this was my first time having to deal with death and I didn’t really understand it. I remember the car ride up to the funeral, I remember my mom and dad sitting up in the front of the car silently

Most of us find it difficult to think about our own death or the death of a loved one. In fact, a great deal of us find it to be inconceivable.

About two years ago, my Grandmother died, two days later we were at the funeral home a couple minutes away from her house, it smelled like old people and salt, probably from the tears that were shed here. The curtains let in beams of light through the intricate design on the tops, it looked like the light beams were telling us that heaven was fetching her from her body, as my mom says. After that we hastily, but bitterly went through the process of all her daughters and her brother (my great uncle) saying their goodbyes first, then my cousins, brother, and family members from my dad's side got to say their goodbyes. My mother and aunts came out crying, I don’t know what it's like to lose a parent so I can’t apprehend what they’re going through emotionally, the only loss I’ve had before this was my fish. My younger cousins didn't understand death, they thought it just meant going to sleep, but my older cousins, brother, and I knew she wasn't going to

“As you comprehend this profound loss, let yourself cry knowing each tear is a note of love rising to heavens” (). The quote above is the best way to define how I finally started to understand why it was okay to grieve over the death of my Great Grandma. On November sixth 2015, was the day my Great Grandma was pronounced dead. The day she died I will not ever forget because it was like I was hit in the chest with a baseball bat that I was not warned would come. When she died no one in my family seemed to not know what to do with themselves, everyone was put on a break from not being sure of how to deal with the lost of a person we all cherished. After a couple months of everyone being away from each other, I realized this is not the way she

My pursuit of a college education has been a lifelong goal. I knew that to earn a college degree would help me make a positive impact on students’ lives by creating new contacts and learning new techniques. I would advance my pay grade significantly. My children and family could be proud of me for being our family’s first college graduate. All of these reasons motivate me to push through the obstacles of my college degree.

I do not mean to diminish the impact the other losses had, certainly seeing the affect my grandfathers death had on my grandmother shaped some of my ideas not only of grief, she was never the same, she did not laugh as much and the light in her eyes was not as bright, but it also shaped some of my ideals about romantic love. To the day she died - 28 years after my grandfather - my grandmother kept all of her checks and official documents titled “Mrs. Willis Goodrich”, and she never removed her wedding ring. The death of my Uncle Forest was the first time I associated anger with death, my Aunt seemed so numb at first and then for months she was so angry at him for not taking better care of himself, for continuing to smoke when she asked him repeatedly to try to stop and for not asking for help moving the ice house he was pushing when he had a massive heart attack and died. She told me later that it was not until she not only recognized but believed that he had not been trying to die, that he had not wanted to leave her any more than she wanted him to leave, that she was finally able to forgive him for dying and move on with her life. My grandmothers death was different from my grandfathers not only because it was not entirely unexpected, she was almost 90 and had advanced Parkinson’s disease, but more in how I reacted to it.

In many instances, the death of a loved one or family member comes with a variety of complex emotions. Those emotions begin to devour our reasoning and control the mind. On the other hand, if the death of the loved one or family member is caused by another being, our only

I remember many things from my childhood , good and bad memories that have shaped and molded the person I am today. One memory in particular that I remember was the death of the grandmother that is something that I vividly remember because till this day it still affects me and there times I wonder “what if she was still alive.”The death of my grandmother affected me greatly because there was almost a time where she would be taking care of me while my mom was in critical condition for a heart problem.