How Death Has Affected My Life

When I was younger, I never thought of death as something that would affect me, but rather other people. That changed on October 17th, 2005 when my dad died. I was just about six and a half when he died. Looking back on it now doesn’t really make me sad, however, it does make me think. I only wonder how life could be different without loved ones dying.

My father’s death was the first of many that I have experienced. In order to fully understand what had happened at that age, I had to elicit information from my mother and grandparents. It seemed like my happiness had evaporated out of thin air after I finally realized my dad would never be coming back. I learned just how sad death is after I figured out all the clues given to me. It changed

the ways of life around me.

Before my dad died, people would say I had more positive feelings towards everyone and life.

The reason is that I had never had anything painful like death happen before then. In a way, I would say that death changed the way I thought for a very long time. I hadn’t known how he died, yet I knew that in some way his death happened under terrible circumstances. Whenever I would bring it up, people would just go silent. It left me confused and lost in some ways. I wanted to know why he died because I thought it would bring closure. I finally found out three years after he died, and it was not what I expected.

Looking back, I can see why my family hid the truth from me of my father’s death. I could not see at the time that I was not the only one affected; everyone in my family was

affected by my father’s death. They hid the truth about how he died from me because they thought it could assuage my pain. My dad’s side of the family has a long line of depression which is basically self-doubt. He lost to it and ended up doing what many people do; he died at the end of a rope within the garage. The death of my father hurt many people. Everyone remembers when he died, and some people are unable to talk about it without getting emotional. Even though finding out how my dad died did not bring closure, it made it easier to talk about him with

others.

A few weeks after my dad’s funeral, my mom signed me up for counseling with a children’s counselor. As a kid, I didn’t truly understand all the talks that we had. We talked about how happy I was. She made it easier to handle the death of loved ones, but I had not realized it until way later in life. She explained how death was inevitable, and she did it with books for little kids. I talked with her once a week for a whole year, then suddenly she says that I no longer need to talk with her. I had learned how to deal with loss without understanding it.

As I said earlier learning more about the circumstances of death made it easier to talk to people. I think that sharing thoughts and facts about anything makes it tranquilizing to talk about it. It is the same with death; talking will make it better. That is from my perspective at least. It might not work for everyone, but everyone has a way to cope with things.
Death is an inevitable occurrence in life. Everyone will experience it whether it is a family member, friend, or someone connected to them. Even though death is a hard thing to deal with, everyone can move on after a loss. Support from loved ones and sometimes professionals goes a long way. I learned death affects everyone, but no one has to be alone going through it.