Prompt: Sudden Death
November 8th 2008 09:02
In an effort to write a last thousand words tonight, I had a friend give me a prompt... it was Sudden Death... and this is absolutely beautiful:
Sudden Death
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Sudden death is often worse than a death you can predict. There is no way to know that somebody is going to get run over by a car, or die in an airplane crash. And you might never get to say a real good bye to that person. You might have been angry at them when you last saw them; and now they're gone, and you can't take it back and tell them honestly how much they mean to you. You have to simply sit there and let them be dead without ever knowing the truth. There are so many things you could have said to them, or done with them. There are things they wanted to do; life dreams and passions never properly fulfilled.
These are things you wanted to do with them. You care about these people, and now they are gone; and you can do nothing to change that. You may not have spoken to them in a few weeks. Maybe you were even planning on calling them that night when a relative calls to tell you that your friend or family member has died that day, killed in a car crash, an airplane crash, or having had their life taken away by another human being.
You never really got to express your feelings towards that person, you never got to do all the things you dreamed of doing with them-perhaps you two were going to travel, or work on an important project to you, do something that means a lot to you. But now there isn't an option to do that now-now they're gone, and you have to move on and learn to live without them. And when it hits you that they're really and truly gone forever, you will be upset. You will be upset by all the potential that has been laid to waste with their death, to rot with them in the coffin. You will be upset by all the good things you could have done together, all the fun you could have had, were going to have. You will be upset, most of all, that you didn't see it coming; that you didn't do something big for them to show them just how much you care before they died.
But when somebody dies slowly, when you can see it coming, it's an entirely different matter altogether. You find yourself spending every moment you can with them, doing all the best things for them that you can. Going out and having fun with them just because you know they won't be able to have that much fun for much longer, and you want them to enjoy their last little while on this planet. You'll get a chance to show them just how much you care.
That's what makes it easier, in the end, for you to accept their loss. That you spent more time with them, that you did all you could, and that they knew you really did care.
I wish the doctors had told me right from the beginning, when he was diagnosed, that the diagnosis of his cancer was terminal. There were many things I would have done differently; all of the adults in my family knew. They did wonderful things for us-got him onto disability, which pays almost three times as much as welfare, got him into subsidized housing, bought him furniture, and helped him do the things he wanted to do. They even did some fundraising which managed to get us to see Scotland, where our family came from, before he died.
I cannot tell you how much that meant to him, and how much it meant to me and my aunt who went with him. That was perhaps the most amazing ten days of my life, that trip, and I will never forget it; neither will my aunt. And I'm sure if he had survived, he wouldn't have forgotten it either. But he died, and so he cannot remember.
We went to my aunt and uncle's cottage one weekend during the summer for his birthday. I remember that event, his cake, and how he was sad because he knew it might be his last birthday. But at the same time, he was happy; we had an amazing time there. I think the part that hurts the most is this is when I grew closest to Daddy, and I never knew. He meant the world to me and I meant the world to him.
It devastated me beyond words when I knew he was going to go. I miss him still, and I wish I had known sooner; because then I would have made an effort to be even closer.
~Dianna
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Your turn.
Sudden Death
-------------------------
Sudden death is often worse than a death you can predict. There is no way to know that somebody is going to get run over by a car, or die in an airplane crash. And you might never get to say a real good bye to that person. You might have been angry at them when you last saw them; and now they're gone, and you can't take it back and tell them honestly how much they mean to you. You have to simply sit there and let them be dead without ever knowing the truth. There are so many things you could have said to them, or done with them. There are things they wanted to do; life dreams and passions never properly fulfilled.
You never really got to express your feelings towards that person, you never got to do all the things you dreamed of doing with them-perhaps you two were going to travel, or work on an important project to you, do something that means a lot to you. But now there isn't an option to do that now-now they're gone, and you have to move on and learn to live without them. And when it hits you that they're really and truly gone forever, you will be upset. You will be upset by all the potential that has been laid to waste with their death, to rot with them in the coffin. You will be upset by all the good things you could have done together, all the fun you could have had, were going to have. You will be upset, most of all, that you didn't see it coming; that you didn't do something big for them to show them just how much you care before they died.
That's what makes it easier, in the end, for you to accept their loss. That you spent more time with them, that you did all you could, and that they knew you really did care.
I wish the doctors had told me right from the beginning, when he was diagnosed, that the diagnosis of his cancer was terminal. There were many things I would have done differently; all of the adults in my family knew. They did wonderful things for us-got him onto disability, which pays almost three times as much as welfare, got him into subsidized housing, bought him furniture, and helped him do the things he wanted to do. They even did some fundraising which managed to get us to see Scotland, where our family came from, before he died.
I cannot tell you how much that meant to him, and how much it meant to me and my aunt who went with him. That was perhaps the most amazing ten days of my life, that trip, and I will never forget it; neither will my aunt. And I'm sure if he had survived, he wouldn't have forgotten it either. But he died, and so he cannot remember.
We went to my aunt and uncle's cottage one weekend during the summer for his birthday. I remember that event, his cake, and how he was sad because he knew it might be his last birthday. But at the same time, he was happy; we had an amazing time there. I think the part that hurts the most is this is when I grew closest to Daddy, and I never knew. He meant the world to me and I meant the world to him.
It devastated me beyond words when I knew he was going to go. I miss him still, and I wish I had known sooner; because then I would have made an effort to be even closer.
~Dianna
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