Tracy's challenge 78.

I am uneasy with DEATH – I’m not afraid of dying per se just afraid of leaving my loved ones behind without me.  I know the sorrow and heartache they will suffer and it makes me very sad.  I DO BELIEVE that when you are dead you do not feel the same anguish as you would whilst alive, but the thought of my loved ones mourning me is too much for me to bear.  I have not suffered really intense loss and this makes me anxious as to how I will react to the loss of say my husband or child or mom or dad or siblings.  My very dear Nanna died in 2000 and it was an extreme shock for me as well as incredibly heart-breaking but somehow I felt comforted at the time by the fact that I knew within my heart she was in a better place and that she had “earned” her place with our Heavenly Father, which was all she would have wanted.  Somehow also I think it is easier to deal with the loss of an older person as opposed to a younger person, not simply because they have had an opportunity to live their lives for longer, but because I think that when age brings with it loss of hearing/eyesight/free movement or mental capacity, this can be extremely distressing for the person involved, particularly if they were incredibly active up to that point.  I think of Granny Gardiner, who was 92 when she died – her husband and close friends were all gone and she was losing her faculties and she was unhappy and frightened.  Her loss was no less mourned but it was easier to deal with.  I went to my first funeral when I was 22 – a close friend of ours, Andrew, was only 23 when he died in a tragic car accident.  He was a security guard in a cash-in-transit van and lost his life when an attempted robbery caused the van to roll.  It was an incredibly sad funeral because he was so young and because it was so sudden and it was difficult at the time to comprehend that he wouldn’t be around anymore.  I am grateful that even though close on 17 years have passed, I still remember him and, if I close my eyes, I can see him clearly and even hear his laughter – I still miss him although I no longer mourn him.  What is amazing is that my son was born on the same day Andrew died, only 3 years later …  I believe that those that pass on before us become our Guardian Angels.  I also lost a brother-in-law to suicide, which was incredibly difficult to deal with, especially because he left behind two very little children.  I don’t like to think about death – it makes me anxious and very sad but I believe in, and am grateful for, the Plan of Salvation and this gives me great comfort even though I know I am not prepared for death. APRIL 2010