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Loss of a loved one

Started by TheSadnessWillLastForever, November 25, 2020, 09:11:38 PM

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Magdalena

Quote from: TheSadnessWillLastForever on November 25, 2020, 09:11:38 PM
I've been grieving the death of a loved one (happened a long time ago) but I've been thinking about him a lot and how much I miss him. It kills me that I will never see or talk to him ever again, does anyone have any suggestions for how I should deal with this thought? How do you deal with loss? Thanks
Well...
Would you like to share with us the things that made him so unforgettable?

"I've had several "spiritual" or numinous experiences over the years, but never felt that they were the product of anything but the workings of my own mind in reaction to the universe." ~Recusant

Randy

My father died more than twenty-five years ago. I'd calculate the exact amount but a quarter of a century is enough.

He died of cancer. I watched him in agony for over two months despite the morphine. He slept a lot too. I think they kept him sedated but I'm not sure.

Anyway, one thing he wanted from his kids (my brother and I) was to go on with our lives. Grieving is inevitable but go on. I've lived to that to the fullest that I was able and have no regrets. I think about him because it was on Thanksgiving day that he went to the hospital for the last time. The doctor said he wouldn't be leaving. He died New Year's day.

The holidays used to make me grieve all over again. The lights, the music, the chill of the night air... They don't do that to me anymore. I'll always think of him but I try to think of the times he spent with me as a child. I have some fond memories.
"Maybe it's just a bunch of stuff that happens." -- Homer Simpson
"Some people focus on the destination. Atheists focus on the journey." -- Barry Goldberg

Bluenose

TheSadnessWillLastForever,  I have found that the sadness of the loss of a loved one doesn't really go way, but in time you get to learn how to deal with it and it becomes less overwhelming.  What I try to do is to recall the happy times, the great memories and be thankful that I got the opportunity to share in those happy times.  It becomes easier with practice and eventually you find that when you think of that person you automatically think of all the good things rather than concentrating on your loss.  At least that has been my experience in my 63 orbits around the sun.
+++ Divide by cucumber error: please reinstall universe and reboot.  +++

GNU Terry Pratchett


Bad Penny II

Quote from: TheSadnessWillLastForever on November 26, 2020, 02:46:44 PM

I am here at the suggestion of my therapist and honestly I just wanted to see if other atheists could help me or give me advice. I do wish I could see my loved one again but I do not want an afterlife, not even a little bit.

I wouldn't mind an afterlife, if it was nice.
Does "my loved one" have a name?
We could just call him Mylov, or... Jeff.
I'd still suggest sad music, peoples point at youngens listening to sad music, saying it makes 'em sad, but it doesn't, they're already there, it helps.
Take my advice, don't listen to me.

Sandra Craft

Quote from: TheSadnessWillLastForever on November 26, 2020, 02:50:02 PM
He was my best friend for years then my boyfriend for a little while then he killed himself, but this was years ago as I mentioned. I thought I had moved on but the grief has come back in waves and is overwhelming me. I used to be a Christian but I haven't been for a long time.

I've been told that grief's often like that, coming in waves rather than ever being resolved completely, and that has been my own experience with intense grief.  And I can't imagine a grief more intense than a loved one committing suicide.

The only thing I can see that's an "up" to hold onto here is that it does come and go in cycles -- it was better once before and eventually it'll get better again, for every time it gets worse it will always get better as well.
Sandy

  

"Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet."  Sarah Louise Delany

Ecurb Noselrub

Dear Sad, you are among sympathetic ears and hearts. Tell us anything you want to about your loved one - we will consider it sacred. 

Icarus



TheSadnessWillLastForever

Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on November 29, 2020, 12:44:29 AM
Dear Sad, you are among sympathetic ears and hearts. Tell us anything you want to about your loved one - we will consider it sacred.

He was beautiful. Black hair and blue eyes, tall as fuck lol. It was his words I fell in love with, and his smile. We stayed up texting each other all night. He was a great storyteller, his best stories were the ones he made up of what our future together would hold. He was very funny, often trying his best to make me smile or laugh because he loved to see it, despite how crooked my teeth are. He was a great poet too, the kind that doesn't rhyme but would make you think. Make you cry. Make you appreciate life and your loved ones. He was a big fan of Edgar Allan Poe, his favorite poem being the one about Annabelle Lee. I still read it when I miss him. We loved with a love that was more than love. He was my soulmate. But his home life was really bad, he was suffering a great deal. I am glad he's not suffering anymore, I just miss him and I wish he would've reached out for help before doing what he did. Thank you for letting me talk about him

xSilverPhinx

Quote from: TheSadnessWillLastForever on November 29, 2020, 06:43:50 PM
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on November 29, 2020, 12:44:29 AM
Dear Sad, you are among sympathetic ears and hearts. Tell us anything you want to about your loved one - we will consider it sacred.

He was beautiful. Black hair and blue eyes, tall as fuck lol. It was his words I fell in love with, and his smile. We stayed up texting each other all night. He was a great storyteller, his best stories were the ones he made up of what our future together would hold. He was very funny, often trying his best to make me smile or laugh because he loved to see it, despite how crooked my teeth are. He was a great poet too, the kind that doesn't rhyme but would make you think. Make you cry. Make you appreciate life and your loved ones. He was a big fan of Edgar Allan Poe, his favorite poem being the one about Annabelle Lee. I still read it when I miss him. We loved with a love that was more than love. He was my soulmate. But his home life was really bad, he was suffering a great deal. I am glad he's not suffering anymore, I just miss him and I wish he would've reached out for help before doing what he did. Thank you for letting me talk about him

Sounds like he was a great person.
I am what survives if it's slain - Zack Hemsey


Ecurb Noselrub

Quote from: TheSadnessWillLastForever on November 29, 2020, 06:43:50 PM
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on November 29, 2020, 12:44:29 AM
Dear Sad, you are among sympathetic ears and hearts. Tell us anything you want to about your loved one - we will consider it sacred.

He was beautiful. Black hair and blue eyes, tall as fuck lol. It was his words I fell in love with, and his smile. We stayed up texting each other all night. He was a great storyteller, his best stories were the ones he made up of what our future together would hold. He was very funny, often trying his best to make me smile or laugh because he loved to see it, despite how crooked my teeth are. He was a great poet too, the kind that doesn't rhyme but would make you think. Make you cry. Make you appreciate life and your loved ones. He was a big fan of Edgar Allan Poe, his favorite poem being the one about Annabelle Lee. I still read it when I miss him. We loved with a love that was more than love. He was my soulmate. But his home life was really bad, he was suffering a great deal. I am glad he's not suffering anymore, I just miss him and I wish he would've reached out for help before doing what he did. Thank you for letting me talk about him

I also like Edgar Allan Poe.  Thanks for telling us about your loved one.

LifeisSweet

If you had the opportunity to communicate once again with your lost love, do you think he would want you to suffer, or would he want you to carry on and find happiness?

Six years ago I unexpectedly lost my beloved wife of 24 years.  It was devastating, but I knew she would have wanted me to move on - because she loved me.

The following year I met a recently widowed lady who fully understood how I felt.  She had a note on her desk that said "There comes a time when the memories bring smiles rather than tears".  It took a few years, but it is true.  We married later that year.

One thing that helped us both was having pictures of our lost loves throughout the house.  We can smile at them and say hello every day, keeping them alive in our hearts.  If it were me who had to go, all I would ask is that she remember me and the good times we had together.

Like all memories, the pain is always there if you look for it.  I am crying right now as I type this.  The key is to not seek out and dwell on those painful memories of loss, but do accept them and give them their moment when they do surface.  Then give equal time to the pleasant memories, and get on with your day.  Over time older memories are buried by newer ones and surface less often.  Seeking them out only brings pain that neither you nor your lost love would want for you.
"When we exist, death is not; and when death exists, we are not." Epicurus

Skeptik

Carl Sagan's wife summed it up more beautifully than I ever could.
On her husband's death, she said:

"They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again. Carl faced his death with unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I don't ever expect to be reunited with Carl. But, the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief and precious life is. We never trivialized the meaning of death by pretending it was anything other than a final parting. Every single moment that we were alive and we were together was miraculous-not miraculous in the sense of inexplicable or supernatural. We knew we were beneficiaries of chance. . . . That pure chance could be so generous and so kind. . . . That we could find each other, as Carl wrote so beautifully in Cosmos, you know, in the vastness of space and the immensity of time. . . . That we could be together for twenty years. That is something which sustains me and it's much more meaningful. . . . The way he treated me and the way I treated him, the way we took care of each other and our family, while he lived. That is so much more important than the idea I will see him someday. I don't think I'll ever see Carl again. But I saw him. We saw each other. We found each other in the cosmos, and that was wonderful."
The certainty with which I know another man's religion is folly makes me suspect my own is also - Mark Twain

Dear Religion,
Today we safely brought a man back from outer space, while you shot a child in the face for wanting to go to school.
Sincerely,
Science

Icarus

Mrs Sagans' response is elegant and hugely realistic.