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A decade later, a decade lost (2024)

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Re: A decade later, a decade lost (2024)

#131

Post by CobaltFire »

orochimaaru wrote: post #74
CobaltFire wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made the mistake of reading this. My son is in remission from cancer (Leukemia, in chemo from 3 to 6 years old, now 7). It's going to be a rough night.

My daughter is in remission from leukemia and was in chemo from 3 to 5. If it was all-b then I wouldn’t worry much. Yes, you’ll have some dark thoughts along the way. I still do at times. But they’ll fade away as your son goes on to lead a pretty normal life. My daughter is 10 now with passions for MMA and horse riding which took a pause because a horse stomped on her toe this past summer pulling out a nail. Was an a…

Yup, B-all.

He hit all the goals so I know the relapse chances are vanishingly small.

Doesn’t change my anxiety though.

Re: A decade later, a decade lost (2024)

#132

Post by rezaprima »

ignoramous wrote: post #121
UberFly wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great post here, and yea, things hit so much harder after kids. I remember seeing a photo of a man in India carrying his daughter killed by the tsunami. My daughter was about the same age and I cried for an hour in front of my computer.

> Great post here, and yea, things hit so much harder after kids ... remember seeing a photo of a man in India carrying his daughter killed by the tsunami Also from India, a bereaved mother is barely able to speak to the loss of her 2 children, right after having spoke about 6 other deaths in her family: https://youtu.be/XLl2qAprU8w?t=312 I've seen that clip before, but after having kids, it hits like a truck. That s…

Speaking of tsunami, I remember watching on TV a mother when was shown the bodies of both her husband and son. She was unable to show emotion at all. Just empty look and silence

Re: A decade later, a decade lost (2024)

#133

Post by switchbak »

renewiltord wrote: post #63
mynameishere wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I think this scolding behaviour is really out of place. The guy is saying "a much lesser loss caused me great hurt; I sympathize with your much greater loss and the hurt you must feel". People do this all the time normally, and secondarily humans have imprecisely expressed feelings all the time and the spirit has usually undone any harm that the worst interpretation of the words could do. But at some point in the ear…

I’ve just had a very close and traumatic loss myself. I can assure you that in some cases, a poorly chosen comparison of grief can have the opposite of the intended effect.

It’s a tough one, because the grieving mind isn’t particularly rational. You have to be especially careful of things that would otherwise be completely fine.

Much of it comes down to wanting real empathy -regardless of where their understanding of loss comes from. What isn’t desired is any kind of equivocation or comparison. And that is so dependent on how the message is delivered.

And I’ve lost dogs too, that can be absolutely devastating, so intellectually I get it, but the point still stands.

Re: A decade later, a decade lost (2024)

#134

Post by edelwiess »

We may all come from different cultures and generations but this loss hits deep in the same way for everyone. When I was a kid, I remember thinking my grandparents were very odd. They’d wake up everyday at 4 am. Grandpa would walk barefoot to the temple in their neighborhood and spend the next 2 hours singing to the deities there, gently waking each one up, washing and dressing them for the day. Grandma would send hand made goodies (food) as an offering with him.

They both spoke very little through their life. Mostly smiled, never heard them say anything bad about anyone, indulge in any material pleasures. Though I got affection from them, there was also always a sense of detachment from both.

As I grew up I learnt that they had lost their youngest son when he was 5 to a snake bite. They carried the burden of not protecting him for a decade while spiraling into depression and only these rituals slowly started giving them some stability back. This was a full 40-50 year time span. As a 40 year old myself I marvel at their strength to live out their lives, also during times where you couldn’t even reach out to internet for support.

Re: A decade later, a decade lost (2024)

#135

Post by BlandDuck »

The_Colonel wrote: post #114
vishnugupta wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Theoden king expresses his grief to Gandalf, “one should not have to bury their children”. I was in college then, unmarried and didn’t appreciate the meaning of it or could appreciate his grief. Now that I have kids of my own I can’t get myself to read the posts such as OPs. And if I end up reading it their grief stays when me for a long time. Exactly what they have written, a…

Stories like this hit me harder after having children, too. But they also provoke thankfulness for all I have. For a little while after I read such tragic stories, I try to enjoy the everyday life a bit more, enjoy the presence of the loved ones. Memento mori.

I agree entirely. I have two wonderful daughters, and stories like this hit hard.

There is a fiction short-story called CHICXULUB By T. Coraghessan Boyle. It is one of the hardest hitting stories I have read as a parent. Still brings tears to my eyes. Recommended.

Re: A decade later, a decade lost (2024)

#136

Post by MandieD »

Syonyk wrote: post #97
ksenzee wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My brother in Christ—meant genuinely—this is not the way. Multiple posts on this thread preaching about Jesus and bringing up the unborn? Evangelism is not meant to be twisting people's grief into a sales pitch. When Jesus's friends wept, he wept with them. (Also, if an SSRI turns your world into grayscale, it's not the right drug for you. That's not how they're supposed to work. Very much the opposite, in fact.)

I certainly don't intend it as a sales pitch. I intend it as something true. Sorry, I'm in a bit of a weird state tonight, chewing through a lot of Psalms, after having gone through Job, and the collection of prophets in the past few weeks, and life... is less stable than I'd prefer right now, with a lot of challenges. Happy to chat via email or Matrix, I'm not hard to find. As for SSRIs, I've not actually tried them…

And about one percent of the women around you have survived an ectopic pregnancy because we're still (mostly) a society that cares more about the life of a breathing, thinking person than of an embryo that was doomed from the moment it landed outside of the uterus.

I'm part of that one percent. I regularly say a prayer of thanks for the doctors and nurses who (mostly metaphorically, but one physically) held my hand and explained what had gone wrong, how I could deal with it in a way that would preserve our chances to try again with as little risk to me as possible. I thank God that I was in a country with the resources and the legal apparatus for me to deal with my disappointment quickly and safely.

And I'm thankful for the child who I was able to bear nearly a decade later.

I don't judge anyone for the abortion they felt was the best of their hard options. I theoretically would have been left until I was bleeding out in many countries [0], and even my own home state doesn't quite feel safe now.

[0] No, I wouldn't. I'm a well-off American woman who can fly to somewhere rational, and worst case, am good friends with several MDs.

Re: A decade later, a decade lost (2024)

#137

Post by MandieD »

Syonyk wrote: post #82
Trasmatta wrote: post #42

Sometimes I think that if there is a hell, we're probably in it. The amount of suffering people can experience on Earth is unfathomable sometimes. I remember the most painful moments of my life, and thinking that it's absurd that the human brain can experience this level of suffering. It doesn't make sense. If we're lucky, we can get tiny drops of joy in life, but the depths of suffering feel bottomless.

There is joy to be found. There can be peace, in this life, even walking through the worst of times. It's found in Jesus, and the life-on-life community known as the Church. We've invented ways to turn down the volume knob on emotions. Anti-depressants, from what I've heard, achieve this (SSRIs?). My understanding, from people who've been on them, is that it turns everything into a muted greyscale. Nothing is very ba…

As a fellow believer, I need you to understand that you are doing more than any hardcore, argumentative atheist to turn people away from Christ by posting like this.

Re: A decade later, a decade lost (2024)

#138

Post by svieira »

iamacyborg wrote: post #110
red_admiral wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And that was just a dog. I forget which book I read this in, but the author in their autobiography described their "real man" father as someone who they'd only seen cry three times in his life. When his wife died, he was all stoic about it and didn't show any upset in public. But when his favorite dog died, he broke down crying. Many people who don't understand how upset one can get over a dog, have never had one.…

A bit daft, but my dad died when I was 6 and I had (and probably still have) a lot of issues expressing grief at the time. I absolutely lost it when a pet goldfish died ~5 years later. This kind of stuff can come up at the weirdest time.

What I have found is that each new grief brings all the others with it. Morning the new sorrow is tied up with morning the old sorrows.

Re: A decade later, a decade lost (2024)

#139

Post by memhole »

I can’t imagine losing a child.

I had a friend die suddenly a few years ago. He was a really influential person growing up.

You go around thinking, oh I’ll catch up later or reply another time and suddenly you can’t. I’ve lost a number of people over the years, but for some reason that friend in particular has been a difficult one to get over.

Re: A decade later, a decade lost (2024)

#140

Post by macintux »

arrowsmith wrote: post #108
anal_reactor wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, exactly my thought. The graveyard in my dad's hometown has a huge section just for small kids, because life in the country was tough, and that was normal.

I remember once walking through a graveyard and seeing three names on a single headstone - three children, siblings who had all died on the same day. Below their names was a simple caption: "All gone". I have no idea what the story is or how those children died, but I think about that headstone all the time, especially now I have a child of my own. So much grief, pain and tragedy conveyed so succinctly. I'm clenching…

Tangential, and I am reluctant to share this in an important thread about loss and grief, but an occasional hobby of mine is finding an interesting headstone during my travels and researching the story.

- https://opposite-lock.com/topic/28187/memorial-mysteries

- https://opposite-lock.com/topic/4273/the-milhon-brothers-sub...

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