by
Chaplain Kathie
When someone dies a natural death at an advanced age, we find it only normal to say good-bye. When someone dies from natural causes at a younger age, depending on how young, it is harder to say good-bye. Somehow it doesn't seem right to us that we outlive anyone. Natural deaths are something we are prepared for, have time to digest even if we still pray for miracles, at least we knew it was coming.
Sudden deaths from natural causes with no warnings are harder to accept. My Mom passed away at the age of 85 but my Dad was only 58. He had a series of heart attacks, making us prepared for when the day would come his heart would give out. In the back of my mind I figured if he beat the other heart attacks, he could beat all of them but I kept dreading the phone call in the middle of the night. When it came, the shock did not hit as hard as I thought it would. When one of my brothers passed away suddenly at the age of 42, that was an unbelievable shock. We didn't expect it at all. Then my older brother passed away at the age of 56, again unexpectedly. We didn't expect his death, had no warning but it was by a natural cause.
We've had a lot of deaths in our families, all by natural causes except one. My husband's nephew, also a Vietnam veteran, committed suicide. We kept asking "why" he decided to take his own life. I knew why he did but I had to ask myself why I couldn't get him to listen to me so that he could have a better chance of healing. Everyone was asking what they could have done to save his life.
People die. They die young and they die old. Had any of their lives been up to us, no one would ever die. No one would ever pass away unexpectedly. Yet for all the pain these deaths bring, there is the traumatic death that is harder for the survivors to recover from.
When other humans are involved, it seems to cut deeper.
A car accident because someone decided to drive drunk.
A pedestrian killed because someone was too busy paying attention to their cell phone instead of the person crossing the road in their path.
A firefighter dying rushing to a fire because another driver didn't want to stop to let the engine pass.
We seem to accept these deaths even though they are harder than a natural death. We are sadden because we know the deaths did not have to happen but we are also angry their lives didn't matter enough to the one responsible for them.
A police officer shot because someone else wanted to take what did not belong to them and had no value for the life of someone else, yet the officer held all other lives above his own.
A National Guards soldier, Reservists, regular military serviceman or woman, dies in the line of duty and we accept the loss because they were doing their job in combat. We pray they come home safely but we prepare in case they do not.
All these deaths cause pain but an unexpected cause of death is something we never seem to be able to make peace with. Suicides. Even harder to accept is a suicide after a traumatic event.
A young soldier, too young to drink legally in most parts of the country, returns home aged beyond his peers while they would rather talk about sports or anything other than even trying to understand the enormity of his pain. His parents want him to stop drinking, reminding him he's too young to drink while forgetting where he has returned from. They want him to go out and get a job because his career in the military, what he's always wanted, became a nightmare and he no longer wants to be a soldier. He's ready to settle for working at the local gas station. A menial job for someone willing to lay down his life for the sake of the country is not what he thought the rest of his life would become when he survived his deployment but could not recover inner peace.
A woman returns home, carrying the weight of a battle she was told she would not have to fight, carrying the images of the young men she tried to save at the same time she carries one more image. The image of the other soldier that raped her.
When they come home in need of help the American people say it's up to the VA and the rest of the government to take care of them. Families demand answers from officials yet few families demand action from their own communities. They want to know what they could have done to prevent the suicide so that it doesn't happen to anyone else's family, but few ever put that desire into action.
What is left are empty parts of their heart, unanswered questions and self blame. They need someone to blame. The truth is they usually end up blaming themselves. They are an easy target.
What didn't they do? What did they do wrong? Why didn't they see it coming? Why did they have so many arguments? Why did they make such a big deal out of something? Why didn't they just sit and listen instead of avoiding unpleasant conversations? Not that any of this could be undone, they find it easier to blame themselves instead of understanding at that moment, with the knowledge they had, they did the best they could.
If you are dealing with a veteran clearly wounded by what they have been through, this video may help you understand them as well as yourself. I've seen what can happen on the positive side of all this as well as what can happen on the dark side of this hell. Give yourself the tools to help them heal or at least enough to heal yourself if your heart is haunted because knowledge came too late for you to save them. You may be able to save someone else.
Posted to Great Americans by SM on January 10, 2009
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