A reflection on loss

[Jmina]

My nanna died tonight, through cancer.

I feel okay. A part of me thinks that it is strange that i can accept her death much easier and quicker than accepting the breakup and loss of my ex...she didn't die but i lost her out my life...

 

But it kind of came to me that i didn't have anything to learn in relation to myself and what my nanna gave me. I'm sad about it, but i'm not devastated. I am at peace with my nanna and well i know she loves me.

 

Loosing my ex, well i had a lot to learn and i wasn't at peace about it for a long time. I had found lots of peace in life from the break up and within my self that i will never loose, but i didnt have peace between myself and my ex. I found it the hardest thing to get over.

 

Now my ex, lost her nanna last year (exact same cause, same cancer and same time of year and we were a big part of her care and arrangements so its weird that now im going through the same but without my ex) the difference is she couldnt let go of her nanna like i couldnt let go of her.

 

she must have something to learn and everything to gain in terms of what her nanna brought her, she must have insecurities that her nanna pacified. She feels she will never get over loosing her nanna. and i felt i would never get over loosing her. to a certain degree i still feel i wont get over it. but it is a small part of me, i do feel it will always be there... and im just learning to live with it and accept it. its not getting me down.

 

so basically i just find it interesting and i felt like reflecting on it all how she lost her nanna and was devestated. i lost her and was devestated. she lost me and she was okay, i lost nanna and i am okay.

 

i dont know why im analysing it, but here i am doing it so..

 

any thoughts?

 

i think its good to talk about your experiences anyway. and i feel like a chit chat....thanks guys

 

Jmina

[jdeedee]

Not much I can say other than this:

 

I am quite upset with myself over my behavior regarding lovers versus family.

 

My father passed away a little over two years ago. It destroyed me for a few weeks but I moved on. I moved on and have healed, at least I feel healed and what we feel is what we are, right?

 

Anyway, it didn't take half as much energy to heal from the death of my father than it is taking to get over the breakup with an ex.

 

Somehow I feel like there is something cosmically wrong with that.

[Jmina]

I don't think there is anything WRONG with it... i'm sure if we knew the ins and outs of it then well it would become more clear.

 

i guess my nanna and your father didnt actually have our hearts. sure they had a spot there and a connection of some sort but it wasnt my nanna who opened up my heart for the very first time and showed me what it was like to fall in love and stay in love and then have my heart fed to the ravens and trampeled on! it was my ex... which is why she is now called my ex...

 

and my nanna is still my beautiful nanna.

 

this is all just reflections as i dont have direction yet with these new ideas

[niceguy27]

Im no expert either but death carries a finality to it. Its a closed door once it happens. The love you have for them gets locked in a part of you forever. Its always there for you to go to when you think of them. When an ex leaves, its different. Instead of a warm place there, its a sort of painful, cold spot. Sure you care for them but you know deep down that they are out there somewhere without you and you without them.

 

Thats why I think it is so hard to let go of an ex. I lost my nanna last year and it really shook me up to the core. But she brought me back to my faith through her death. I learned from that point on that YOU have the power to choose what to take from the things people/life has taught you. As much as that had an impact on me, losing my ex took me months to get back on my feet.

 

IDK....love comes in all shapes and sizes I guess.

[flosslight]

I have the opposite reaction. Losing my father was so much worse than losing my fiance. My father died when I was 17 so maybe because I was younger but it took years for me to really get over it. I could never talk to my father again and see if we would have gotten along better when I was in college. I will never get to introduce my husband or children to my father. I'm crying a bit now and it has been over 8 years.

 

It hurts a lot that my ex-fiance does not want to be with me but we still have the potential to be friends. I can still make jokes and talk to my ex. In eight years, I will look back and probably be a bit sad that my first love left, but I will lokk around and see my new life. I rather someone left than died.

[PLAYBRAT]

I think the death of a loved one is easier to accept because it was not their choice...unless God forbid it was a suicide. As you said death is final, you pretty much learn to accept they are never coming back.

 

When an ex leaves, if by choice, you know they are out there, and probably seemingly happier without you. THAT is hard to accept and get over. I think it's why to some degree, we get satisfaction when we DO hear from an ex. At least we know they are hurting a little, like we are.

In these instances, misery usually does love company.It's harder to see happy couples, or romantic movies. We get some satisfaction of knowing others hurt like we are. At least until WE are through it.

[quankanne]

i guess my nanna and your father didnt actually have our hearts. sure they had a spot there and a connection of some sort but it wasnt my nanna who opened up my heart for the very first time and showed me what it was like to fall in love and stay in love and then have my heart fed to the ravens and trampeled on! it was my ex... which is why she is now called my ex...

 

I think the opposite is true: That with certain people, like family members, love is certain, it's sure. So that when you do face a loss, you understand that the love doesn't change even though the person him/herself is gone. When you break up with someone, there's often not the same strength of assurance when it comes to love ...

 

my condolences on losing your nanna …

[Jmina]

so howcome she has found it so hard to get over her nanna but not me? she said she wouldnt have let it get this far if she wasnt getting over her nanna....

 

is she using it as an excuse for just being screwed up?

 

i have no doubts that it is taking her a long time to get over her... but i feel that loosing a grandparent is nomal, and well kind of expected.. especially when they get old. its natural...

 

i guess it becomes different when your grandma acts more like your mother though... its like she is going to eventually hvae to go through loosing two mothers ...

 

i don't know, maybe it is too late in the night for me to be thinking about this now... but i cant seem to sleep...

[Trimmer]

A part of me thinks that it is strange that i can accept her death much easier and quicker than accepting the breakup and loss of my ex...she didn't die but i lost her out my life...

 

My father passed away a little over two years ago. It destroyed me for a few weeks but I moved on....

 

Anyway, it didn't take half as much energy to heal from the death of my father than it is taking to get over the breakup with an ex.

 

Somehow I feel like there is something cosmically wrong with that.

I don't necessarily think so... I don't think it's a matter of whether they are in our hearts to a greater or lesser degree, I think it's perhaps a measure of how complete the cycle of our relationship is with someone who departs.

 

A relationship with a parent/grandparent is built around eventual separation at adulthood. Jmina - if you had a relatively healthy development and separation from your parents and nanna as you grew to adulthood, of course they are still deeply in your hearts, but the development cycle of the relationship has mostly been completed.

...it kind of came to me that i didn't have anything to learn in relation to myself and what my nanna gave me. I'm sad about it, but i'm not devastated. I am at peace with my nanna and well i know she loves me.

Your relationship with her was a complete one - not in the sense that it was "over" at any point, but that it was a fully-developed relationship, and partly defined by the bookend of your moving into adulthood.

 

On the other hand, in the case of a partner who leaves, especially to the degree that this is unexpected and sudden - the development of that relationship is cut off right when it is still growing, evolving, so the loss you feel is both a loss of what has gone past, and a loss that anticipates what was to come.

 

This idea also tracks with flosslight's comments about the loss of her father - she felt it so strongly because she was still in her developmental relationship with him, and the separation which would have come naturally, eventually, as she grew to adulthood was forced upon her before its time...

[Jmina]

what about my ex lossing her nanna. all theories go out the window. her nanna was at the end of her very old but good life, which im sure ex would have known. i dont know what kills her inside to loose her nan. i dont know if she has more issues with me that was during the time of loosing her nanna which made it harder so really its to do with how she coped with the loss because of the situation, not because of who she lost.

 

well i just feel like i dont compare to her nanna and never did, and i feel like and insult to her life. i dont necessarily want to be compared to her nanna, but i feel i didnt even get a chance to break up "properly" because i was pushed aside as she was dealing with her nanna. but she got to be angry at me, and tell me when she missed me... its like it was two sided. and if i ever told her i missed her or got angry all hell broke loose!

 

i really do feel this girl has double standards. in our relationship she had double standards, she wouldnt let me do certain things but she could do them to me. i dont remember what they were but i remember how i felt when she said it. confused, hurt. but just like everything else i covered it up. or it came out in different ways that frustrated her and she thought i was making it all about me when she was trying to deal with her dying nana. gosh.

 

i never wanted to make it all about me, i didnt understand why she wouldnt treat me how i treated her, and i was confused and hurt.

 

this is the part of our relationship that i havnt touched yet. and its 8 months down the track . i feel it is a good thing to get out.

[carrotgirl]

what about my ex lossing her nanna. all theories go out the window. her nanna was at the end of her very old but good life, which im sure ex would have known. i dont know what kills her inside to loose her nan. i dont know if she has more issues with me that was during the time of loosing her nanna which made it harder so really its to do with how she coped with the loss because of the situation, not because of who she lost.

 

well i just feel like i dont compare to her nanna and never did, and i feel like and insult to her life. i dont necessarily want to be compared to her nanna, but i feel i didnt even get a chance to break up "properly" because i was pushed aside as she was dealing with her nanna. but she got to be angry at me, and tell me when she missed me... its like it was two sided. and if i ever told her i missed her or got angry all hell broke loose!

 

i really do feel this girl has double standards. in our relationship she had double standards, she wouldnt let me do certain things but she could do them to me. i dont remember what they were but i remember how i felt when she said it. confused, hurt. but just like everything else i covered it up. or it came out in different ways that frustrated her and she thought i was making it all about me when she was trying to deal with her dying nana. gosh.

 

i never wanted to make it all about me, i didnt understand why she wouldnt treat me how i treated her, and i was confused and hurt.

 

this is the part of our relationship that i havnt touched yet. and its 8 months down the track . i feel it is a good thing to get out.

Jmina, I'm so sorry your nanna suffered with cancer and so sorry for your loss now. All this time you've been helping so many of us here, what an inspiration you are. It's okay too, to not be so brave. Okay?

 

Over the years, I've learned that the way we look at life and live our lives has a lot to do with the way we handle death. It seemed like my experience (lacking a better word) with deaths and dying shouldn't be so different from others since the core of futility and loss is the same for us all but we're all individuals and we all bring something different to the interwoven story.

 

I spoke publicly about wellness and quality of life as a lay person in the role of care giver for a few years. I've gotten to meet and listen to a lot of people and learn from them. One lesson I've carried in my heart is this, I have been SO very lucky to be so beloved in my life for the relatively short times I've had with my family and friends who have died. I was loved a lifetime's worth and I'm not just saying I know it, I know it. Everyone else isn't so lucky to have this and my heart aches for their suffering.

 

I think you are a person like this Jmina. You've had a lot of love in your life. You have your share of pain and sorrow too, but real love, the kind where you know you are loving and loved is maybe more rare than we like to think. It's not a nice thing to consider or admit that we don't love people we think we should or aren't loved by them but it is how it is. You've had and have something special in your life that enables you to see beauty even in a thing that is terrible. It's this ability that gives you strength and perspective when contemplating death.

 

I think it's the same thing that dissolves fear of the unknown and what helps us to forgive.

 

Love to you Jmina,

Carrot