Dealing with Death and Grief

I consider myself extremely lucky to be able to say that I never lost someone close to me.  I’ve lost distant family members of course and I’ve been there for my friends when they have lost members of their family, but I personally haven’t experienced the death of a parent, grandparent, sibling, or close friend.

Then this year began and I lost my nephew. 

January 4th, I woke up to about 5 missed calls from my mother and assuming she hadn’t called about anything serious, I opened up my Instagram and read the news on my feed instead of calling her back.  On there I saw my niece’s post: The one that said that my nephew was dead. I was in shock, thought I might’ve misread.  I remembered the missed calls from mom and called her back. When she confirmed tragic news, I broke down sobbing. My mother was on the other end of the phone trying to calm me, but I couldn’t stop crying. 

It was nonstop crying for about 30 minutes.

The weird thing is that I wasn’t “close” to my nephew. The sad truth is that I hadn’t seen him in years. I hadn’t spoken to him either. My family can be rather distant and we were never taught that it is imperative to keep in touch with family. I was also so young when most of my nieces and nephews were born that I’ve always felt that I could never have or play that authoritative aunt role. 

None of that mattered though. I felt his death and it struck me and took my breath away.

That entire morning I thought of him. I remembered him as a baby living in the apartment next door to me with my brother and his mother. I remembered how his little arms would go up in the air when he would see ME walk through the door so that I would pick him up from his playpen or crib. I remembered his smile as a baby and I immediately thought of how much he always looked like my brother. 

He was my brother’s twin.

I felt pain because his life was taken and I never got the chance to share those memories with him. Regardless of the distance, I always loved him. I always will love him. He’s my nephew forever. We share the same blood, the same family, and the same ancestors.

I felt pain for my dear brother, whom I love so much, because as a parent I can’t imagine the pain you feel when you lose a child. I felt pain because I know that for him this death, like it did for me, must’ve also reminded him of time lost.

During this time while my family and I are still grieving, each of us, in our own way, I received more bad news.  Twelve days after the news of my nephews death, I learned that my assistant principal from my night school job passed away. Let me start by saying that she was more than a supervisor to her staff and more than a principal to her students. She was a friend to her staff and a second mother to most of her students. She was as real as they come, super thoughtful, caring, supportive, giving, helpful, and positive.  Many people broke down when they heard the news of her untimely death. 

During grief counseling we all shared stories about her and laughed and cried together. It was extremely moving to see and hear the effect this one person had on so many people.  One colleague began to share that the news of the death of a loved one brings upon varying reactions from people. She reminded us that we all grieve differently and that no one should tell another how they’re supposed to feel or how to react. This resonated with me because people would say, in fact, I know some people did say and some did think that the distance between my nephew and some of the members in my family should have affected our sentiments.  They thought that the distance somehow made our feelings insignificant and less worthy. 

It didn’t.  I can only speak for myself, but I felt his death deeply. 

We must be reminded that we all love differently and that we are all affected by death differently. Each of us is entitled to feel however our heart feels and grieve as we need without the judgement of anyone.  

Lets be kind to one another and lets show our love to our family and friends.  Lets forgive often and lets give the flowers to the people who matter to us while they can still smell them.