My grandfather just died today and I only cried once, and only felt a little sad. We were kinda close, and I didn't get to say goodbye either. He was really sick, to boot. I lost someone else who was basically my other grandfather a little over a year ago, and it still hasn't sunken in. After a year. I know everyone grieves differently, but is this really normal...? I'm ashamed to say this, but...I'm really scared. Please help. ~ SlowlyBreaking
Hello SlowlyBreaking, I am so so sorry for you loss, for both of them. I hope you don’t mind but I’m going to tell you a bit about myself in hopes that it will help you. So my grandma died my sophmore year of high school on March 28 ,2013. For simplicity sake I’ll try and keep this part short. She was very sick after having a heart attack and being released too early. I got a note in class saying one of my sisters was coming to get me, I ran out of the room and had an anxiety attack in the office waiting on her. She tod me they were going to take our grandma off her medications and that it wouldn’t be long before it was over. The doctors waited a few hours after we all got there, I have a huge family and a lot of kids were pulled out of school and work. My grandma then started yelling “take me home” ( I left out part of what she said because it is to hard for me to think about it). We took her home on hospice that night, and the doctors didn’t expecter her to make the ambulance ride home. I convinced my mom to let me be there when she got home. My grandmother lived another week at home surrounded by all of us. It was one of the hardest weeks of my life. She died on the frst day of my spring break that year. I wrote a poem about her and read it to my class for an assignment and when my dad read it him and my aunt decided I would read it at the memorial. That was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Now that it has been almost 3 years I can finally say her name and talk about her without completly falling apart although I do cry ususally. This past April 3, my aunt passed away after fighting cancer. It was just over 2 years after loosing my gandmother. Needless to say I have given up on the Easter holiday as in less than 3 years I have lost two of my favoirite people in the world. Now I know that was long, but trust me I have a reason for telling you all of that. There are still times when I want to call my grandma or aunt or go see them, and then I remember they are gone. I have only been to my grnadpa’s house maybe 4 times since my grandma passed. It is still hard for me to talk about them. I don’t know if it hasn’t truly hit me that my aunt is gone or not. You are absolutly right that everyone grieve differently. At my grandma and aunts memorial services I played ping pong with some of my cousins when an hour before I was falling apart at the pulpit reading a poem about my grandma while everyone of the people there cried. We all handle death a little differently and that is okay and normal. I am going to link a site at the bottom that might help you. The site descibes how differnt grief can be. It also desribes the “five stages of grief”. Stage one is Denial-“This can’t be happening”, stage two is Anger-“Why is this happening”, stage three-bargaining-“Make this not happen and I will___”, stage four- Depression-“I’m to sad to do anything”, and stage five Acceptance-“I’m at peace with what has happened”. Now not everyone goes trough all five stages and some never go through any, it all depends on the person. Disbelief is a common symptom, where you have troubling believing it even happened. Fear is also common. You are not alone in your feelings. I hope I have been able to help you. You can always send us an ask or use the live chat feature. I would also recommend talking to people close to you who are grieving as well. There is no better support system than those who know what you are feeling and understand your feelings. If you would like I will talk to you more and try and help you through this, if you would like that just send a message through the ask box with my name in it off anon if you are comfortable with that and we can work out a way to talk outside of Tumblr. Once again I am truly sorry for your loss and I hope that by sharing my story I was able to help you.
