How do you respond to death?

[rizardtails]

Death can be an interesting thing, and people tend to respond to it differently.

Anyways, I found out today that a student at my school died over the winter break, I didn't even know him, yet I felt really bad and ended up crying when I got home. Some other poeple just shrugged it off just because they didn't know the person, but I saw it as "What if that had been one of my friends?" Basically, death snaps me back to reality.


Anyways, how do you normally respond to death?

[Lunarflight]

Nobody i knew ever died before, but when i was 6, one of my grandpas died, and I didnt even want to go near the corpse because I was stupid, and I thought it was a zombie...

I feel really bad now. D:

[Kingpin]

erm, death.....is painfull anyone who has ever seen someone or known someone that died thats close or not to them has my sympathies, quite a serious topic this is, if anyone comes in and is tryin to make a joke of it i'll kick 'em to kingdom kome...

[Master Silver]

For me, it depends on who it is.

If it's someone I know, then yes I'll be sad. But if I didn't know them, I'd be like, "who?".

[TDF]

Never knew anyone who had died, so I can't answer directly.
I'd estimate if it was someone I cared about, sure I'd be sad, but be happy they're in a better place, or wherever they are, it'll probably be better than Earth.
If it was nobody I knew, I'd be just 'Eh'.

[Quacker Duk]

I've had several people close to me die, and I still don't know how to respond.

When my grandmother and dog died when I was 14, I cried for a good two hours each. After that, I missed them dearly, and still do to this day, but was able to function normally.

When my uncle passed away recently, I felt compelled to write. I just felt an urge to put down on paper everything that he meant to me, and try to encompass everything that the man inspired. I gave it to my cousin, and he actually read it at the funeral.

The hardest was the passing of my dad when I was 10. It wasn't that I really liked the man. He wasn't abusive, but he wasn't very affectionate or caring either. He was in many ways a stranger to me, though we lived in the same house. When he died, everyone assumed his young son would be grief stricken and all eyes turned toward me to make sure I was OK. The problem was, I felt fine. I wasn't happy that he died, and certainly felt bad about it, but there was this great pressure on my shoulders that the world "expected" me to be in tears and emotionally shaken. I just couldn't cry, and that made me feel like a tremendous failure.

[rizardtails]

My God I've been having the worst month of my life this month.

I thought it was bad enough when they named someone I didn't know and said they died, but today they said that one of my friends died in a car crash today...

I can't cry around other people, so I had to go the rest of the school day trying to act like I was fine, and now that I'm home I can't cry anymore... :/

[Quacker Duk]

Well, hell. I'm so sorry Rizard Tails. That really is awful!

Life never hesitates to deal us such devastating blows, but we would be terrible people if we didn't let it affect us.

I wish I could offer you some kind of sentiment that would make you feel better, but in my experience, everything people say when you've lost a loved one comes out as corny and shallow. The best I can offer is consolation in that they were lucky to have you as a friend, and while that doesn't make their death less tragic, it means their life was a little nicer.

[rizardtails]

I'm so relieved that I found out that it wasn't my friend that died, but another Stephanie B. that was a Senior at my school. I mean, I still feel bad that that girl died, I'm just glad it wasn't who I thought it was.

[Quacker Duk]

Your relief is understandable.

I'm glad it wasn't your friend.

[Songblade]

Shyly resurrecting this...

My grandparents keep dying on me and I have only one left, but the closest grandmother died a few years ago. I remember having been out with friends when my mom called that my grandmother had died in her arms. I felt so horrible that I'd been having fun while my family was suffering. At her funeral, I know I wailed like a madwoman. She had helped raise me as a kid and made possible my mom and I coming to America. She'd done so much for us. She also didn't die quickly, she'd been suffering for over a year with all sorts of horrible stuff... So I guess I kinda wanted her pain to stop. I remember watching my mom touch her corpse at the viewing, but knowing my grandmother wasn't there anymore. I do miss her, but I know she'd rather not live longer with pain.

For people I don't know (like Michael Jackson or people who used to go to school with me), I feel bad, but I don't fall apart like I did with my grandmother.

My family has raised me to know that death is an inevitable part of life. It's part of a cycle and it's.... strangely healthy. What matters is that you live your time on this earth the best you can. So I suppose I'm not afraid of dying... just hope I don't die with months and months of pain beforehand.