Personal Narrative: Death Of A Loved One

There are many concepts in life that are difficult to comprehend or cope with. For many individuals, death can be difficult to understand. One moment that loved person is here and the next moment they are gone. Once that person has left, people may see life as a precious and fragile existence. When I experienced the death of a loved one, I realized that all that we are can quickly fade away.

On Wednesday, January 15, 2014, my life turned into a catastrophic mess. Around 7:00 pm, we were to have some individuals from our church to encourage us with scriptures from the Bible. It had been encouraging to hear what the Bible promises us. Unfortunately, they had not been able to encourage my whole family because my mother had been out of town for

It was difficult to comprehend that I would never hear him laugh or see that black sparrow tattooed on his right bicep again. I had not seen him for a few months and it made me wish I had spent more time with him. I kept replaying the last time I had seen and been with him in my head. It had been at his youngest sister’s wedding where we had both been in the wedding party. At the wedding reception, we had danced together and it had been the last time that I held him. Also, I realized that his children would not remember him the way that I or others did. They were not old enough to comprehend what had happened. They had been only three and five years old. As these thoughts were going through my head, I decided that I needed to be alone. I went to my room and had fallen to my knees crying with my face in my hands because I couldn’t take the throbbing pain in my chest. It felt like I was suffocating. There was an elephant sitting on my chest and no matter how I writhed underneath it trying to get free, it would stay on top of me. My heart had hurt so much and it still does four years later. My father came into my room a while later and told me that the visitation would be in Brookings on the seventeenth and the funeral would be on the eighteenth. I could not sleep that night. Memories were replaying through my head. It was like a movie that I couldn’t stop no matter how painful it was

On the way up to Brookings, it was silent once again. When we arrived at the Kingdom Hall, it was a different type of pain that hit us. We became aware that this was the last day that we would see him for some time. When we walked in, it was a repeat of the visitation. People offered their condolences and cried for what they had lost. At two o’clock, the funeral began. When the time came to have the casket closed, it created a permanent crack within my heart. When the thud resounded through the auditorium, I knew it was the ending of a section in my life. I had been aware that the section was coming to an end, but that didn’t mean that I wanted it to end. I knew that the future chapters would not include him. However, I was unaware of how this moment would shape my future. I didn't know that his death would hurt me so much mentally and emotionally that I would not be genuinely happy until at least two years