Dealing with Death – C. Britton

When I Was Young

When I was about 10 years old, my cousin, Vicky, moved in with my mother and me for a couple of years. The three of us spent most evenings in the summer playing board games with Vicky’s boyfriend, Steve. Summertime in Detroit meant open windows, which meant more noise than usual. There were railroad tracks ten houses south of us and Telegraph Rd, with four lanes in each direction was seven blocks to the west. And Schoolcraft Rd, with a perfect stretch for drag racing, was less than a half mile to the north. I would lay in bed late at night listening to rumbling trains, racing engines, squealing tires, and sirens.

This night stood out because there were several sirens one after the other. They were loud, which meant they were close. It seemed to me that all of us felt uneasy but nobody was talking about it, probably for my benefit.
Not long after the barrage of sirens the pizza guy came. I overheard him talking to Steve on the porch, “You know that kid John Monahan. He died. A bunch of kids were chasing the fire trucks on their bikes. He got hit by a car crossing Outer Drive.”

I felt sick. I knew him, not well, but I knew who he was because we went to the same school. He was a few years older than me, but I noticed him because he was often at the middle of some commotion on the playground at recess. For some reason, he was the target of the bullies. I recall standing there feeling sorry for him and wondering why no one was stepping in and stopping these cruel kids. He looked so sad and ashamed as they teased him about being overweight, it was heartbreaking.

 

That night, I lay awake in bed for hours feeling empty and afraid. The idea that someone that young could be gone forever, in a moment, without warning, overwhelmed me. That night permanently changed the way I viewed life, I was forced to process tragedy in a way that I never had before. Tomorrow is not guaranteed and unthinkable accidents happen randomly. Nobody is truly safe. I kept thinking about his parents, his brothers and sisters, what they must have been going through, what was happening in their house right then? Why them? Why him?

This was not the only night that I was unable to sleep because of sadness, fear, or worry. I was insecure as a child and spent far too much time worried about something bad happening to me and/or my mother. For several years in my youth, I lived in fear that she would die and that I would be alone (because it was just the two of us). Every time she was late getting home from work, I was afraid that she had been in a car accident. A different year, after seeing a book with photos of houses destroyed by fire and burn victims, I laid awake each night afraid that our house would catch on fire. Sadly, I never shared any of this with my mother. Even now, I don’t know exactly what stopped me from telling her.

 

The Years Passed

The years passed and what used to be unthinkable was becoming more common. Not just old people either. Mothers of young children, a guy who was engaged to be married, and parents of friends. I knew these people, and the people who they left behind.

 

Then, in August of 1982, when I was 15 years old, came a series of tragedies that profoundly impacted me.
The news came on a Saturday night and I don’t remember exactly who told me, but I do remember thinking that he must have had it wrong. Unfortunately, he didn’t.

 

It happened at the home of a family from the neighborhood, I knew all three of their kids from school, and their father was one of my softball coaches. Both parents and the daughter went away for the weekend, leaving their two teenage sons at home. They had at least one other friend over and they were drinking, which led to arguing and fighting. The elder son left the room and returned a few minutes later with his father’s hunting gun. He then shot and killed his brother’s close friend, an act which I learned years later had destroyed the relationship between he and his brother. A foolish, split-second decision that would result in horrific, destructive, and permanent consequences. I can hardly imagine the regret and guilt this guy felt and most likely still feels.

 

The following weekend, on Sunday morning the phone rang. It was Tom, a close friend. He started, “You know Mike Lopez?” (This seemed like an absurd question as he was part of a group of us that hung out together at least once a week). “He’s dead”.
“What? No! Are you serious? How? Are you sure? No. What happened?”
I heard the words but they would not register. It seemed like I was watching this conversation happen to someone else. A friend asked him to come to his aunt’s cottage for the weekend. They had been drinking and then decided to go out on the lake. Something happened and Mike drowned. We never found out exactly what events led to his death. 

I was in shock. It seemed surreal, and I was unable to process the news for hours. My mom and I went grocery shopping and I had to keep reminding myself that Mike was dead. The next week was awful as the reality of this tragedy set in. I stood in Church feeling numb as I watched several of my close friends carry Mike’s casket to the front of the church. His parents were devastated and unable to find the answers they desperately wanted.

 

Six days after Mike died, my friend Mary called me with the news that a mutual friend of ours was at work when the restaurant was robbed. He was taking out the trash and, for some reason, they shot him several times.
He would be paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his life. I felt like the world was spinning out of control. “How can all of this be happening, what’s next?” Mary said that he was doing well and that he had a good attitude. Not surprising. John was a kind, gentle, decent guy who seemed not to have a mean bone in his body. I was planning to visit him in the hospital, but kept putting it off as I was unable to muster the courage. I never got to see him; he died in the hospital when a blood clot went to his lung.

The cumulative effect of these things seemed to hit me harder than my peers. I was very depressed, and it ran deeper than the loss of friends or the pain of those left behind. I was coming to grips with the inevitability and unpredictability of death. This time I was unable to push it aside or distract myself with other things. Life seemed so tenuous. Why bother?

 

I believe that most of us go through something similar at some point, usually precipitated by an illness or death of someone close. At times, I am amazed that we don’t find ourselves unable to get out of bed in the morning when we consider our ultimate fate. Most of the things that we fill our days with seem so meaningless. After all, we are all going to die, as will the people we love.

 

In My Twenties

Eventually the depression eased up and things returned to normal. I kept busy with getting through the Engineering program, working, and excessive drinking (something one would have expected me to avoid considering the devastating consequences in the lives of people around me). My life was full of distractions, leaving me little time to think about the deeper and more disturbing questions of life, at least not for very long.

 

I was forced to face death a few more times within the next several years but the most disturbing was when I attended the funeral of a 9-year-old girl. She died when a car ran a red light and hit the car she was in with her brother, mother, and her mother’s boyfriend. The ‘boyfriend’ was a close friend of mine and he was driving. Standing in the cold at the cemetery, I watched in horror as her mother wailed and clung to the small casket. They finally had to pull her away. To this day, that is one of the most haunting scenes I have ever witnessed. I can hardly imagine anything worse that the death of your own child.

Death is unfair and ugly. And every one of us must face it, a fact that I found haunting. Several years later, however, I made a decision that would change the way I viewed everything, including death.

I became a Christian in 1992 and my world was turned upside down. Much had changed and even more needed to change, but I found the thing that had been missing for my entire life and was incredibly grateful. Obviously, finding God didn’t change the fact that life is still subject to tragedies.

 

As I Neared Forty

About 10 years ago, a very close friend of mine and mother of three young children died after losing her battle with cancer (I will devote an entire post to Jennifer’s story).

A year after that, I had to face my biggest childhood fear. My mother, my entire family in many ways, died at age 65.
I have experienced great loss since becoming a Christian; the deaths of Jennifer and my mother were the most painful for me by far. Nevertheless, something was very different. I went through these situations with God and that made all the difference. My hours spent in prayer and reading His word each day as these events unfolded provided strength and comfort that I wouldn’t have expected or understood had someone told me before I experienced them.

I felt peace from God and trust of Him that I could never have imagined beforehand even though these events were exceedingly painful. It would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, for me to explain this in an understandable or meaningful way. Some things can only be understood by personal experience.

 

Getting to know Jesus has had a profound impact on the way I view death. Losing a loved one doesn’t hurt any less than it did before but death itself seems different.

Jesus is the answer.

 

“…he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”
-Hebrews 2:14-15

 

“He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”
-2 Tim 1:9-10

 

“On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces…”
-Isa 25:7-8

 

“For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”
-1 Cor 15:25-26