The title of the post first came to me a couple of years ago as my son and I sat in the emergency room of a local hospital. As many of us have experienced, we could be "dying" and still be waiting to be seen.
My son Tim is an intellectual, with a great sense of humor and although in a deal of pain, sat and laughed at the thought of a emergency room joke book entitled "In the process of dying".
We discussed how it might feel seeing something like that if we had been in a very serious situation, so after some thought at least for the three hours we waited, we decided against it.
Why a Blog? Why now after a couple of years. Realizing after a friend asked my advice regarding grief ( her friend whom had lost two sisters had been struggling with grief for years and she hadn't know how to help her ) that there is so so much to learn. So much to share.
All of us are in some kind of process; living, growing, grieving and dying and it is important to see it all as journey. A Journey that we all share and like birth, every ones experience is different. Time is never the same for me as it is for you, neither is grief.
We all grieve and learn differently, some never learn, others force them selves to learn or are forced by life's circumstances. Some allow them selves the grace and time to heal. Regardless, no one is better than another and although on the outside we try to help each other, it is important to realize much of the process is alone.
Dying, whether our selves or people close to us is really a process that many do not understand and/or are afraid to talk about. Many of us cannot even listen to people who are going through this process whether they are going through it them selves or are witnessing family die,for that matter. We don't know what to say, words are caught in our throats, are brains scrambles for the right words as we meet some one with cancer or who was just recently widowed and we can only seem to mutter "I am so sorry". Maybe reach out the hand in comfort.
Many of us when we find out the person who has died was old there may be a little relief, for us, rationalizing they lived their lives..... its was their time, as we quickly look for the nearest exit sign.
In 1991 I watched my mother dye of lung cancer, a horrible death and heard many around me talk about people who have aged. They had lived there lives and it is a blessing they did not suffer long. All words of comfort, all well meaning, but of no use for the pain and suffering the sisters, the daughter, the sons, the husband or wife are going through.
We dont know how to feel others suffering of loved ones that have aged. We dont know how to talk about our inevitable ends. The fears, the unknown......... we live in the Pepsi generation were life is about the now and just have a mountain dew or a Pepsi and all will be well with the world. We are so removed from life as a society, so when tragedy occurs we have few people to turn to and really talk about it in a deep way.
After the death of my mother I looked around at people on the streets as they went merrily along and thought dont they get it. A wonderful woman is gone. Why do they not feel it, how can they not see that the world I lived in has stopped for a moment. Then as I was driving passing a funeral home I saw her a woman in her late sixties, coming out alone from a funeral home leaning on a pole crying. I couldn't pass her by and it didn't matter to me about the fact I was a stranger I could feel her pain. I pulled over and went up to her and asked her if she was OK? Arms out stretched to catch her she held my arm and cried and just told me her best friend had died suddenly of a heart attack. It was tragic and what was more tragic is I had pasted that funeral home for many years and this was the first time I had seen a woman in tears or anyone for that matter.
There is so much to learn from people and the way people process their lives and grieve the loss of others.
We can share in this with one another and in that process of dying learn to live and see things in a more sensitive and caring way. It is from things like death we really learn to live.
My son Tim is an intellectual, with a great sense of humor and although in a deal of pain, sat and laughed at the thought of a emergency room joke book entitled "In the process of dying".
We discussed how it might feel seeing something like that if we had been in a very serious situation, so after some thought at least for the three hours we waited, we decided against it.
Why a Blog? Why now after a couple of years. Realizing after a friend asked my advice regarding grief ( her friend whom had lost two sisters had been struggling with grief for years and she hadn't know how to help her ) that there is so so much to learn. So much to share.
All of us are in some kind of process; living, growing, grieving and dying and it is important to see it all as journey. A Journey that we all share and like birth, every ones experience is different. Time is never the same for me as it is for you, neither is grief.
We all grieve and learn differently, some never learn, others force them selves to learn or are forced by life's circumstances. Some allow them selves the grace and time to heal. Regardless, no one is better than another and although on the outside we try to help each other, it is important to realize much of the process is alone.
Dying, whether our selves or people close to us is really a process that many do not understand and/or are afraid to talk about. Many of us cannot even listen to people who are going through this process whether they are going through it them selves or are witnessing family die,for that matter. We don't know what to say, words are caught in our throats, are brains scrambles for the right words as we meet some one with cancer or who was just recently widowed and we can only seem to mutter "I am so sorry". Maybe reach out the hand in comfort.
Many of us when we find out the person who has died was old there may be a little relief, for us, rationalizing they lived their lives..... its was their time, as we quickly look for the nearest exit sign.
In 1991 I watched my mother dye of lung cancer, a horrible death and heard many around me talk about people who have aged. They had lived there lives and it is a blessing they did not suffer long. All words of comfort, all well meaning, but of no use for the pain and suffering the sisters, the daughter, the sons, the husband or wife are going through.
We dont know how to feel others suffering of loved ones that have aged. We dont know how to talk about our inevitable ends. The fears, the unknown......... we live in the Pepsi generation were life is about the now and just have a mountain dew or a Pepsi and all will be well with the world. We are so removed from life as a society, so when tragedy occurs we have few people to turn to and really talk about it in a deep way.
After the death of my mother I looked around at people on the streets as they went merrily along and thought dont they get it. A wonderful woman is gone. Why do they not feel it, how can they not see that the world I lived in has stopped for a moment. Then as I was driving passing a funeral home I saw her a woman in her late sixties, coming out alone from a funeral home leaning on a pole crying. I couldn't pass her by and it didn't matter to me about the fact I was a stranger I could feel her pain. I pulled over and went up to her and asked her if she was OK? Arms out stretched to catch her she held my arm and cried and just told me her best friend had died suddenly of a heart attack. It was tragic and what was more tragic is I had pasted that funeral home for many years and this was the first time I had seen a woman in tears or anyone for that matter.
There is so much to learn from people and the way people process their lives and grieve the loss of others.
We can share in this with one another and in that process of dying learn to live and see things in a more sensitive and caring way. It is from things like death we really learn to live.
