Death and Dying
I would have thought that going through the death of my mother would be just “another experience,” but as usual, my assumptions were incorrect. She died almost a year ago - August - and the effects of watching her demise and ultimately watching her die have made irreparable impressions on me. I was a child of nine years when my father died. He died at home, in our living room, and I watched it. The slow, impenetrable loss of life made an impression, but it wasn’t until many years later that it would make itself known. As a kid, I had no understanding of death - what it was, how it happened, or what happens afterward. I remember feeling almost nothing, and later feeling like something had changed, but I wasn’t certain what. Eventually, it dawned on me that I no longer had a father, or a father-figure. Mom tried to replace that with friends and family, but I was already too shut-off from people that I couldn’t accept their gestures. I don’t know if they were awkward or if it was my ...