Honoring the Dead in my life

You might be young and have lost no one close to you. You are very very lucky. I once was like this. But that ended with the death of my older cousin when I was 8. Bobby was 16 and drove a car into a house and it broke his neck and he was gone.

He was the beginning of many deaths I have had to face in my life. Dealing with deaths might be the single hardest thing to deal with in life other than dealing with your own death.

From my point of view, however, my death isn't hard for me to deal with at all, it is life that is harder to deal with by far. If you are dead it is over, this life. So, dealing with my death is easy from this point of view. But, while I'm alive I have many many responsibilities whether I'm retired or not.

The next death was my mother's father when I was 12. However, he wasn't very nice to me so it was hard to be too upset about his passing.

This since she had many unresolved things in regard to her father sent my mother into a nervous breakdown which happens to many people when they cannot resolve their issues with their fathers when they pass away. My mother and father stopped being head ministers of their church in Los Angeles and my father then started his own business with a partner around this time too.

The next to pass away was my father's father when his panel truck went off a cliff into a river near Elk City Idaho where people were dredging for gold there. This was in fall 1970

The next important person to pass away was my father's mother in 1972 in Seattle.

The next person to pass away is my mother's mother at age 90. She was born in 1888.
She passed away in Seattle in 1978.

The next person to pass away was my father in 1985 from Prostate Cancer.

The next person to pass away was my Aunt from a melanoma in her arm that metasticized into her intestines and killed her in 1995.

The next person to pass away was my cousin caused by the 9-11 crashes of the planes he built at Boeing in Seattle.

The next person to pass away was my earliest best friend from church around 2006, Richard.

The next person to pass away was 2008 (There were 4 close relatives that passed away this year) was my Aunt Eloise, then my father in law, then my female cousin, then my mother. This was a very difficult year to survive for me for several reasons.

The next person to pass away was my High School Best Friend in 2010, Mike. The day of his funeral I couldn't even speak all day I was so upset about this.

However, this mostly was my relatives and a few very close friends but did not include countless others who died along the way too.

So, if you live to be 20 or 30 without losing anyone close to you, please consider yourself to be very very lucky and that this likely won't last.

Honoring the Dead in my Life.

So, of the people I grew up with in my life that I am still in contact from the 1950s and 1960s there likely are only about 2 or 3 I still have contact with that are still alive. My best friend from my 20s and my 5 years older cousin and his wife are the ones I still regularly visit at least once a year in other parts of California than the one I live in.

If you have lost no one yet you have a lot to be grateful for. For example, losing my father in 1985 ended my 2nd marriage and made things very difficult until I had almost died myself in 1998 and 1999. Only when I almost died myself could I finally process my father's larger than life passing. So, don't think you are immune to having to deal with deaths in your life. Like I said unless you are very brave it all just sweeps you away until you are never found again.

 So, learn to be brave because no one gets out of here alive.

The only thing we have in the end is our immortal soul.

So, our relationship with God and our own soul are the most important things in life we have. But, learning to be kind to yourself and all others you grow closer to God every day.

By God's Grace