Coping with Death

Today I saw someone experience a death of someone very close to them.

The closest I've come to experiencing something like this is seeing my father cry at my grandmother's funeral. I was too young to understand at the time. During high school, someone in my school lost her mother when she had an asthma attack. I was never around when my own family members passed away because they all live in Japan. Had I been in the medical social work field, it's something I would have to deal with on a daily basis. My job would be to help the families process and cope with the death and everything that takes place afterwards.

I co-facilitated a bereavement group while I was in graduate school, but even that was not as intense as what I witnessed today. My supervisor only allowed them to join the group after about a month or so after the death.

He had been ancitipating this person's death for a while, but that certainly didn't make it any better. Everyone copes with death differently, and there were moments when I felt like this person is making it too dramatic. He was saying things like, "Why did you leave me?" Am I too realistic for my own good?? Regardless, I empathized and could feel how much pain he was in. I even envied him for being able to feel so much love and pain.

Experiences like these often make me think of my own life. I honestly don't know how I would react to losing my own parents(or any other family members). Considering how calm I am with most situations, it may take a while for it to sink in if it were to happen to me. I can say that no matter how close/not close I am to the person, losing a family member is like losing a piece of myself. I think given the relationship that I have with my family members, my bereavement would be complicated, as they call it...