Rough times

check out "ghost rider" by neil peart. great book!! he lost his daughter to a drunk driver and his wife six months later to cancer. he went on a healing/writing road trip across canada down to south america and back on his motorcycle. His words can be helpful to anyone who has suffered a loss.

Originally Posted by: LeedoggStart reading up on Jason Becker if you really want to see someone that fate screwed. I know my problems seem trivial when I think about what happened to him.

Ya, I totally agree with you Leedogg. Poor guy had so much potential and was robbed of it. Amazing guitarist.

However, we're examining the topic of people who have some power over their fate (contemplating suicide) as opposed to people who were dealt their fate (i.e. genetic disease, cancer).

Yeah. There's really no way to describe it to somebody who hasn't gone through a death in the family about what it feels like. There's just no words that do it justice. It's like on top of all the grief and numbness, there's this heavy feeling that totally screws you up. You find yourself doing dumb things like walking into the next room to talk to the person who died because they should still be there, like if you just walk to the corner of the room, you can find a way to talk to them. You spend weeks at the cemetary and find yourself going there at 3 a.m. just so you can have some privacy and let your emotions out without anybody seeing you.

Then there's the normal everyday stuff that wouldn't normally mean anything, but now it's just overwhelming. Like getting letters for that person and having to open them... going through their private possesions to make sure there's nothing embarrassing that somebody else might find... cancelling credit cards and other services and having to explain it to the person on the phone why.

Then there's the realization that the one person who understood you best and knew all your inside jokes and knew what you were thinking before you even said it, is now gone. And there's nobody to share that with anymore.
Now the funny stuff you would have laughed at together is just bittersweet and kinda sad.
Then there's the funeral and the priest talking about God and you just want to throw the bible at him and tell him to go screw himself because 'God' wouldn't have done something as mean as this.

Later on there's the sideways head tilt you get from people for the next few months (the 'hi, how are you?... are you doing ok? thing) and the looks from everybody off in the distance who you just know are saying 'he's the guy who's brother died'.
Then to top it off, all these people you thought were friends start avoiding you because of the stigma associated with the whole thing and a year later none of them come around anymore.

I have a friend who lost her mom to cancer, and then a week later lost her dad to a heart attack. she and her 6 brother and sisters (yes a total of 7 kids!) were now just trying to get by in a house with only one bathroom.. this apparently became a big story, and they were actually on the first sharon osbourne show, and they had their house redone by extreme makeover.

I have another friend who's sister has had cancer several times, in her knees, in her lungs, everywhere. and she really doesn't have much time left. it's really sad, because she has all these dreams and hopes and fantasys that will never come true for her. and there was recently an article about her in people magazine.

I personally haven't lost anyone too close to me other then my grandfather when I was 8. but you both have my condolences all the same, hunter and andrew. keep going, it'll get better eventually.