coworker passed

[Midnight12]

just got the news one of hub's coworkers that I was friends with and just stopped communicating passed due to a heart attack. we all knew how she lived, and her lifestyle wasn't that healthy and she DID try to improve it, but it was one of those that you know what will take them just don't want to deal with it when it does happen. This is more of a thought than a debate please don't take it that way and I do apologize if it seems a debate it isn't. (IE she was a smoker and big eater and knew her vices but she had a happy life so when she was alive she was happy at least) however she left behind two kids, grown of course but still they were her kids.

....of course in shock and reminded of the feeling I felt when someone I cared about passes away and tat I STILL don't like that feeling and wished it had remain something almost forgotten or forgotten.

Yet instead my mind turns to questions of what about her family and what can I do to help? (rhetorical question in that I know what I CAN do but what do these people need from me that I can do)
sorry, just had to get it out instead of hold it in

[Midnight12]

and learning more as I am trying to get in touch with people....it. it happened in front of another of hub's friends at her house...and....and i was supposed to go over there today and did not because hubs was being his usual whiny antisocial self

[Ree]

Yet instead my mind turns to questions of what about her family and what can I do to help? (rhetorical question in that I know what I CAN do but what do these people need from me that I can do)

I was given this when my husband died.
Having gone through it, I can honestly say I agree with it 100%, especially the bolded part:

HOW YOU CAN HELP ME

Please talk about my loved one, even though he is gone. It is more comforting to cry than to pretend that he never existed. I need to talk about him, and I need to do it over and over.

Be patient with my agitation. Nothing feels secure in my world. Get comfortable with my crying. Sadness hits me in waves, and I never know when my tears may flow. Just sit with me in silence and hold my hand.

Don't abandon me with the excuse that you don't want to upset me. You can't catch my grief. My world is painful, and when you are too afraid to call me or visit or say anything, you isolate me at a time when I most need to be cared about. If you don't know what to say, just come over, give me a hug or touch my arm, and gently say, "I'm sorry." You can even say, "I just don't know what to say, but I care, and want you to know that"

Just because I look good does not mean that I feel good. Ask me how I feel only if you really have time to find out. I am not strong. I'm just numb. When you tell me I am strong, I feel that you don’t see me.

I will not recover. This is not a cold or the flu. I'm not sick. I'm grieving and that's different. My grieving may only begin 6 months after my loved one's death. Don't think that I will be over it in a year. For I am not only grieving his death, but also the person I was when I was with him, the life that we shared, the plans we had for watching our children and grandchildren grow, the places we will never get to go together, and the hopes and dreams that will never come true. My whole world has crumbled and I will never be the same.

I will not always be grieving as intensely, but I will never forget my loved one and rather than recover, I want to incorporate his life and love into the rest of my life. He is a part of me and always will be, and sometimes I will remember him with joy and other times with a tear. Both are okay.

I don't have to accept the death. Yes, I have to understand that it has happened and it is real, but there are some things in life that are just not acceptable.

When you tell me what I should be doing, then I feel even more lost and alone. I feel badly enough that my loved one is dead, so please don't make it worse by telling me I'm not doing this right.

Please don't tell me I can find someone else or that I need to start dating again. I'm not ready. And maybe I don't want to. And besides, what makes you think people are replaceable? They aren't. If and when whoever comes after will always be someone different.

I don't even understand what you mean when you say, "You've got to get on with your life." My life is going on, I've been forced to take on many new responsibilities and roles. It may not look the way you think it should. This will take time and I will never be my old self again. So please, just love me as I am today, and know that with your love and support, the joy will slowly return to my life. But I will never forget and there will always be times that I cry.

I need to know that you care about me. I need to feel your touch, your hugs. I need you just to be with me, and I need to be with you. I need to know you believe in me and in my ability to get through my grief in my own way, and in my own time.

Please don't say, "Call me if you need anything." I'll never call you because I have no idea what I need. Trying to figure out what you could do for me takes more energy than I have. Understand how difficult it is for me to be surrounded by couples, to walk into events alone, to go home alone, to feel out of place in the same situations where I used to feel so comfortable.

Please don't judge me now - or think that I'm behaving strangely. Remember I'm grieving. I may even be in shock. I am afraid. I may feel deep rage. I may even feel guilty. But above all, I hurt. I'm experiencing a pain unlike any I've ever felt before and one that can't be imagined by anyone who has not walked in my shoes.

Don't worry if you think I'm getting better and then suddenly I seem to slip backward. Grief makes me behave this way at times. And please don't tell me you know how I feel, or that it's time for me to get on with my life. What I need now is time to grieve.

Most of all thank you for being there for me. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for caring. Thank you for helping, for understanding. Thank you for praying for me.

And remember in the days or years ahead, after your loss - when you need me as I have needed you - I will understand. And then I will come and be with you.

If I had a dollar for every time I heard, "If there's anything you need, just call..." I knew people meant well, but there was no way I was going to call and ask for help. I would have preferred they called me and asked, "Is there anything I can do for you today?"

[Midnight12]

working on getting her phone number as right now all i have is her facebook but right now working on just going to sleep tonight and contacting people tomorrow.

I have an idea that right now the rest of this week and then some people that knew here are going to be in shock, denial, anger and deny it happened.
my mind is going, ok who is going to deal with whats left of her affairs and work and so on. and me being the person who wants to do something to avoid dealing with it is going ok lets do this.
and also wanting to be there for the other co worker.
I hesitated to post this because i had just learned that first coworker died in other coworker's house so i want very much to be over there for her. or at least tomorrow because i am sure her plans have come to a halt. going to continue on as second coworker had a gathering planned and everything and was sure that first coworker was going to be there too. yeah....
also anger at self because I could have made the effort to become closer but alot of it was i feel kept from possible friendship because hubs is very reclusive and antisocial....but i know better.

thank you Ree for the advice. I really do want to be there and listen ACTUALLY listen to her and let her cry and vent and carry on and be there for hugs. and have her know i mean this, i don't say it like everyone else just to say it

[BeenThereDoneThat]

Ree, perfect response. As a bereaved parent I can relate and I have seen that piece before. It should be required reading for everyone as far as I'm concerned.

Midnight12, I'm sorry to hear about your husband's coworker/your friend. *hugs*

[Eireann]

For my part, I would have given a great deal to have someone tell me to call if I wanted to talk. Nobody did. Nobody ever has. It still hurts.

And I wouldn't have minded if someone had told me, "I know how you feel." It's much better to talk to someone who knows what it's like.

[Ree]

For my part, I would have given a great deal to have someone tell me to call if I wanted to talk. Nobody did. Nobody ever has. It still hurts.

I'm sorry you didn't have that support.

For me, though, I had a lot of, "If there's anything you need, just call."
I appreciated it, but it began to feel like it was just something to say when they didn't know what else to say.

There's making the offer, and there's following through.

I had a handful of people who were great to call weekly for a month or so, but then it tapered off, and for the next 2 years, I would spend evenings and weekends, desperate to hear another adult voice, or even just feel a hug that wasn't coming from my little granddaughter.

I could have called them, but I guess I'm just the kind of person who worries about imposing or bothering people.

I am so grateful that I had lots of support from my online friends.
I chatted online and vented in PM's and blogs and private forums.
That certainly helped, but then it made me a little bitter that I was getting more support from internet friends than I was from family and real life friends.

I had lawn work and home repairs that got away from me. (I was depressed, overwhelmed, and too exhausted to do any of it, but I didn't want to bother anybody.)

I had snow building up in my driveway, and the same neighbours who said, "If you ever need anything..." would blow out their driveway with a snowblower and never even think to knock on my door.

I hurt my back one time trying to shovel the snow, and my friend (one of the people who called me to check on me in the beginning and then stopped) gave me crap and said, "I am really mad at you. You know you can call (her husband and son) any time and they will bring the snowblower over. Don't you ever do that again."
One day, after a storm, I decided to call, and her husband said, "As soon as I get my own place shoveled out, I'll try to get over."
He did show up later, but I still felt like I had imposed by calling.

The same friend had said to call any time I needed to get to the store for groceries. (I don't drive and was going broke paying for cabs.) I called a few times and she was great, but then I began to feel as if I was putting her out because she started having her own health issues, and she was getting her mother to drive me.

One of my coworkers lost her husband just last week.
Another lost her husband last year.

I told both of them that I am here for them anytime, and I meant it.
I have been there for the woman who lost her husband last year. I have let her cry and share her feelings, and I listened and helped her feel that she was "normal".
I never said, "I know how you feel," because nobody can ever really know another person's pain.
I have said, "Oh, I understand that feeling. This is what helped me..." and that's all I can do.

I will do the same for my other coworker.

I do understand that the same reservations that kept me from calling probably also kept people from calling me. (Friends: "I don't want to bother her if she's resting." Me: "I don't want to bother them." Friends: "I don't want to keep reminding her of her loss." Me: "I don't want them to get sick of listening to me talk about him." Friends: "If she really wanted something, she would call." Me: "If they really wanted to help, they wouldn't wait for me to call.")

[Midnight12]

WARNING LONG POST

I deeply apologize if this offends anyone. This is how I am, and how I deal with grief for the first part. I throw myself into ok what do I need to do to prepare, then cry when I finally stop which DOES happen as I don't keep looking for something to do to avoid crying, well at least not anymore.
I am honestly NOT trying to be insensitive but for me, doing this is what keeps me sane and helps with grieving, it gets me past the anger and denial part of grieving and in my mind makes it more real.


Passed Coworker whom I shall refer now to as J. Her daughters are coming into town, first daughter is here and having a rough time as no one knows where her..where J is in which hospital or morgue. And the person that uhm...for lack of better words had J pass in her home may or may not have her personal effects.

I am keeping my distance for now as I figure the family JUST got here let them rest, cry grieve etc and then help as I have been asked to help some as no one is sure what to do yet.

I ask, if anyone is willing to speak up about it, what needs to be done? it is a cremation so that helps to know some. For me I am thinking this is basically taking care of J's unfinished business or whats left behind.

I am letting J's daughters call the morgue/hospital as they said they would and they have the authority to get her personal effects or rather what was on her at the time.

My thoughts are on what needs to be done: get keys to home, rent moving van, move stuff out, when ready, clear fridge tell landlord/lady
- call all the bills, electric, phone, water/cable etc which is a pain to deal with i am sure because how do you get the authorization and how can they believe you as having read from here i've no doubt many many SC's have tried the relative died give me discount or worse.
- pay any outstanding bills,?
-death certificate
- keep ashes or keep in masoleum
-hold service and where? because they originally came from virginia
- deal with J's paperwork from her job...401k and such
- close all bank account(s)

if anyone can think of anything else that needs doing that can affect the family if left undone as I gather the less calls from people they have to tell that J is no more the better
the hard part would be to go through the cell phone and call those people....

I have told J, other friend and the family members that ARE here that they need to avoid certain people at J's work because sadly they are gossip hounds

[Midnight12]

also, to follow through I stopped by her house, no J but person she passed away in's house. not to brag but it meant something for me to do so.

[Ree]

also, to follow through I stopped by her house
<snip>
it meant something for me to do so.

I'm sure it did.

You are being a truly great friend with all that you are planning to do to help the family.

If that helps you through your grief, that's good.

[Midnight12]

in a sense but i figured that all of the above is difficult to do even with a clear head...even more so in the middle of grieving. will update on this in a few days as I figure its going to take a week or so for J's immediate family to get here