Life Lesson: Death

One of the hardest lessons of life is handling death. There's the obvious about death: "there's no good time for it to happen", "it's part of the cycle of life", "time will heal all pain", etc. But really, until you have to go through it, there's so much that you realize you don't know about death and you're not sure you really want to know. But not knowing, of course, is worse.

My father-in-law passed on December 29th of throat cancer. He'd been through treatment once, but it came back aggressively and once diagnosed with the recurrence in November, it didn't take long for the disease to take over the rest of his body. He passed peacefully with his family surrounding him. He's in a better place. The rest of us, however, are in various states of grief, not knowing, confusion. We learned some things but still have questions.

Things I learned:

• How you'll deal with a family member's death isn't generally something you talk about with your future spouse before you get married - you figure it out only once it happens


• Sometimes, you don't deal with death of a family member the same as your spouse


• Sometimes you don't believe the same things as your spouse when it comes to death


• Sometimes you have to give in even when you think it's the wrong thing to do


• Support isn't easy to give when you're angry, but you have to do the best you can


• No one is there to help you when they are a group who are united in their own family issues


• You can get a veteran's ceremony for anyone who served in the military and there is a National Cemetery in Kent, WA


• Once a person dies, you can't ask for any clarification on what they meant to have done with their stuff


• No one really knows how things work once you die and you have to have lots of family meetings to figure it out


• Not all family members will act appropriately during the process


• It can be full of drama and outsiders may not understand or want to be a part of that


• No comment support isn't easy when people are reported to lack common sense


• You can look or sound like a heartless bitch as much as you try not to

But through the experience, I know that I need to understand and figure out way more than I currently know about the process of death for the sake of my own family. So one of my new year resolutions is to study up and get our affairs in order. Then I'll work on my parents to make sure that their affairs are all in order, becasue if they leave a mess, well ... who knows what I'd do!