My aunt died suddenly last week of a heart attack. I went to therapy the next day and spoke to my therapist about how it was affecting me.
My aunt dying suddenly brought up many different emotions. Sadness was the first emotion of course and empathy for my uncle and cousin followed closely. But the emotion that I was ultimately left with was one of gratitude.
I am so grateful that I was allowed the opportunity to have time with both Jeff and my mom before they died. Since Jeff had lung cancer and Mom had MSA, we knew what their fate was so I was able to spend that quality time and not take the finite amount of time left for granted since neither of them died "unexpectedly."
I was much more able to do that with Mom than with Jeff since I had already learned so many lessons from Jeff, but I was still able to let Jeff know how important he was to me and I knew how important I was to him.
But my cousin and uncle were not able to get those opportunities. My aunt was just going about her normal day when she had a heart attack and died before the paramedics could get her to the hospital. My uncle was able to get home in time to see the paramedics working on my aunt but my cousin lives a few hours away and did not make it in time to see her mom before she died. Both my uncle and cousin suddenly had their whole lives change unexpectedly.
I am so grateful that I had the time and opportunity with Jeff and my mom to say good bye before they died, to tell them how much I loved them, and to attempt to prepare myself for what my life would be like without them, even though I still don't feel like one can ever prepare oneself for such devastating losses.
I am living with huge voids but at least I had the chance to to let them know how much they meant to me and I was able to know how much I meant to them.
I've had so much death in these last 5 years, but it has taught me to have so much gratitude as well.
I recently read a great blog post called "Focusing on Everyday Gratitude." If you struggle with finding gratitude in tough life situations and circumstances or just every day in general, she gives some good tips about how to be grateful everyday.
