Free Thought Series: Grief and Death

           On my podcast, we’ve attempted to cover the topic of death on two separate occasions and due to technical issues it never came to fruition, so I figured the universe was giving us a sign and it was a perfect topic for my free though series. I’m going to attempt to share my own experience with death and how (in my true personal optimistic fashion) lessons about life can be found even in the heartache of death. I’ve lost my father when I was 17 years old and my brother most recently as of February of this year. I’ve experienced first-hand the wave of grief and reflection when a death accrues within the nuclear family. I’ve seen it bring people together as much as it pushes others apart. I see the different methods of handling grief from self-blame all the way up to anger, but I’ve also noticed other aspects when remembering the months after my father's passing. I initially viewed my father’s death as a problem of divine causality. I wasn’t able to get the thought out of my mind of “what did I do to deserve this?” I couldn’t figure out what actions I had taken to lead to experiencing such suffering. Of course, 17-year-old me spend the first couple of days after my father’s death thinking about all my life milestones yet to be accomplished and how he’ll never get to be a part of them. I was experiencing for the first time in my life what true grief really was. The mental traps of thought, combined with confusion on how mental pain, magically transforms into physical pain. However, after a couple of months, something interesting happened and I gained the ability of mindfulness. 

           I found insight in my own emotions and an 18-year-old me decided I didn’t want to live in a world of grief anymore. I understood live is complex and everything happens for a reason. I knew my choices had no influence on the events that unfolded and it all started to come together when I found out my best friend was contemplating suicide and seeing my grief snapped him out of whatever he was going through and he believes (just as I have come to believe) that my dad indirectly saved his life. I vowed to find a way of looking at my father’s passing to try and lessen the suffering. I started fantasizing about my own death and thinking about the people I would be leaving behind and realized I would want everyone I cared about to live their fullest and I would hate to see the people I cared about suffer from grief. I was then able to shift the same context to my father and I came to realize my dad wouldn’t have wanted to see his children sad and suffering either. My dad wouldn’t have wanted me to become consumed with grief to the point of self-sabotage (which it seemed to me was the direction my brothers were headed in). At that moment I vowed to start enjoying my life and acting in the lens of my father still being with me, just out of a physical context and into an emotional one. I started to find comfort, in the beginning, to enjoy life again. 

           I’m now 29 years old and with more than a decade now passed I’ve been able to continue to self-reflect with what I’ve learned from death. I’ve learned we grown and learn as humans through compare and contrast. The death of my father gave me suffering, but I found that a strong understanding of suffering gave me a greater capacity for understanding joy. I learned to begin to appreciate the small things in life and through comparison, I was less affected by the negative things, such as a flat tire, or being cut off on the road. They didn’t have the same hold on me as they once did. Death is tragic, but it’s ultimately inevitable, so I chose to take death and use it to give me much-needed insight on life. My brother’s passing this year was another test of my ability to handle grief and of course I took a weekend to let my mind wander into negativity territory, but once I got it out of my system I started to carry my brother’s presence in my life from the physical to the emotional and knew he wouldn’t want to see his mom or his brothers in pain and I began to gain strength to be there for my family because I know if our roles where switched he would be doing  the same. I also reflected on my family and decided to take action in working out a plan for me to come down more regularly to spend time with my family and work towards building a stronger relationship with my other brother. 

           We have no real way of knowing what happens after death. All we’ll really know for sure is how we are personally effected when whomever we loved, admired or cared about passes. My goal is to share my experiences and insights in hope to teach others we’re more in control of our outcomes than we think and when it comes to death in particle we all should work towards changing the comparisons from fear of death because of life, into an appreciation for life because of death, or am I the only one?