Hey everyone!
So, I was actually talking to a friend over the weekend and we got on the subject of family issues. One that was particularly interesting to me was absent family members. What I mean by an absent family member is a close member that dies or a close member that leaves the family for other reasons (divorce, personal reasons, etc). I was curious not about what your thoughts were about leaving, but about the restoration of the family after. Do you guys think that a family can ever be fully back to “normal” after a family member leaves the family? Also, does it vary depending on whether the family member died or whether they left by choice? Who do you think has the hardest time returning to “normal”, older members or younger members? Why? I can’t wait to see what you guys have to say!
On a side note, since it is nearing Halloween, anyone want to share what they’re going to be?? :)
12 comments:
Whoo whoo first to answer lol. Anyway, I have to say that I think that it would be harder to get over a family member leaving by choice. I have had an experience that was a family member leaving by choice, but this meant by taking her life. It was hard to lose her so suddenly, but to know that it was her own decision. I mean anti-depressants were a factor so I always like to hope that she wasn't exactly in the greastest state of mind, or "herself" at the end of her life, as my family says. I think that in most cases of death however, that although it is just as painful as having a family member leave, it is less personal. The people left behind don't seem to be mad at their lost family member, but rather at a larger force. Whereas when a family member chooses to leave the family, but is still alive, it seems as though the question is "did I do something to make them leave?" The same reason that many parents going through a divorce must tell the children that it has nothing to do with them and is in no way their fault.
I think that a family has the power to rebuild over time, the absent member is still greatly missed, but the pain of the leaving isn't as fresh. Life goes on, but there will always be that space that can't quite be filled.
..... as for my costume :) I'm going to be a naval flight girl from top gun :) My suitemates and I are doing a military theme. Happy Halloween everyone!
I think it entirely depends on the family whether or not they find some sort of "normal" after a family member dies or leaves by choice. My cousin died when she was thirteen and my aunt and uncle have never fully recovered from it. Even though it was twelve years ago, they still relive the day they lost her. Her stuff is still there inside their house. Most of it is locked away in the attic, but it's all still there. Despite my aunt and uncle's grief, I know they have tried to maintain a fairly normal home life for their three other children. To this day, I'm still not comfortable talking about her in front of them, and when they bring her up I tense up immediately. I know that it's probably a good thing that they talk about her. It just hurts me that they're still grieving after all these years and will probably continue to grieve for the rest of their lives.
I think my cousins were able to recover from their sister's death a little better than their parents because they were so young when it happened. They were also always heavily involved in school, music, and sports so they were never really left to dwell on their sister's death, but I'm not entirely sure because we have never really opened up about her death even though we are fairly close. I think it was more difficult on our whole entire family because her death was not her choice. I think it is easier to accept a person's absence when they're still alive, when you still have the possibility of maybe reconciling or just having them back in your life. With death, there are no second chances of them coming back into your life, but Frances makes an excellent point that some people blame themselves more when a family member leaves by choice. It all really depends on how close the family is. Sometimes that space is used to bring a family closer together or remains there as a division between the family.
On a happier note, I'm thinking Snow White :)
I do not think the family will ever completely return to normal because when there is a missing puzzle piece, no matter what the reason, the puzzle is incomplete. It will never fit together perfectly again. However I do think most families can achieve a "new" normal after dealing with the issues of loss. It definitely does vary depending on whether the family member died or left by choice. I personally think it would be worse to have a family member leave by choice because that means they have given up on the family as a whole. With involuntary death, the family mostly feels grief. With voluntary absence, the family probably experiences a lot of guilt. I actually think the younger members would have the hardest time returning to a form of normal because it is like Buckley's situation in The Lovely Bones. Even though it may have seemed to be easier on him because he was young and oblivious when Susie died, he turns out to be one of the hardest-hit characters because he encounters it all over again when he is old enough to understand. Although such an event would obviously hurt the older family members, I think they would be better able to deal with it being wiser and having more life experience to respond to human action.
As for Halloween, I don't even know what I am going to be yet! However the coolest thing I ever was for Halloween was a pair of dice with a friend. We decorated big boxes to look like dice and wore them! :)
There's no doubt in my mind that it would be harder to lose a member who chose to leave rather than stay behind, because it would make the entire family feel insignificant and like they weren't good enough to make that person stay. If a person is forced to leave through death then at least the family has the consolation to know that they ould have stayed with the family if they could have.
I also agree with Lauren when she said that there would be no returning to "normal". No matter how you look at it, a person is missing from the family unit and everyone will feel that absence in one way or another - an example of this that we see frequently is when girls grow up without a mother and turn out to be more of tomboys since they didn't have that feminine role model. However, I also agree with how the family will eventually shape their own new kind of "normal" in order to cope with the loss. As the family attempts to return to normal, I think the younger members would have the easier time since they would have less memories of the absent family member while the older members will still have all those memories and feel that absence more accutely.
On a happier note, I'm going to be the cheshire cat 8D Happy Halloween!!!
I have to say that I actually think the opposite of most of you. I definitely think that it would be harder to lose someone by death. I understand how betrayed and hurt you would feel if one person left by choice, but I think we would just get over them. If they don't want us then why should we want them? I think that we can get over someone who just got up and left faster than one who has died. And I think you could get on with your life faster as well. When my parents got a divorce, after everything got settled and figured out, my dad decided that he would move back to Hong Kong where he was born and where some of his family still lives. He was going they’re to study at the college (he was already a neurologist but wanted to study more about public health) He was gone for about a year and a half and I’d hear from him about every month. It was so hard for him being away, but I understood how hard the divorce was and that he needed to be with family and doing what he wants to do.
When a family member dies, they are gone, there is no talking to them or seeing them, they are just memories now. The fact that this very important person is gone and you can’t see them is from the fact that they are physically gone and not because of a choice one is making seems devastating. I don’t think that a family could get over this. Like Lauren said they can create new normal. I think that it would be hardest for a parent to lose a child. I once met a man who said that their only wish was to die before there child. And I think this is one goal for all parents. A parents and child definitely have the deepest relationship. They created this innocent thing and seeing it being taken away for no reason wouldn’t make any sense.
For some reason I’m just feeling out of it so I hope I’m making sense haha
I just think that in this life we have so many choices that at some point it just becomes something we take advantage of and it would be so hard if you couldn’t be able to see a loved one, if that option got taken away.
I think deciding which is harder would have to depend on which family member is absent. I think it would definately be alot harder to loose a parent that left by choice, but someone like a sibling would be harder to deal with if they died. A parent is supposedto be there and love you unconditionally. For them to have the ability to just drop and leave you is heart breaking.
If a sibling were to runaway, sure it would alsobe heart breaking, but I would see it as a way of them creating their own life and starting something they dream for. (Not sure if this thinking is based on the fact that I'm an only child.) However, if a sibling were to unexpectedlypass away, I feel it would be alot harder. I think the restoration of any family would happen more rapisly with the passing of a family member. Just because ofthe fact that it's permanent. When someone leaves by choice, there's always that possiblility of them coming back and many of the family member have hope that they will come back.
I think it is possible for a family to return to "normal" after a loss, but to a different type of normal than the normal they had known before. After loss, a family has to make alterations to keep their life going. Once a family member is gone, they are irreplaceable. However, with strength and determination, a family can pull through and make the necessary changes.
I think that it's hard to decide whether absence by choice is harder to deal with than involuntary absence. Of course, it's hard on a family when someone chooses to leave them, but at least the family knows that their absent member is safe and hopefully happy. When a family member passes away, however, there's no reassurance as to where they are or how they are. However, I feel that death is something that can come to be accepted. From the time I was four, my great grandmother lived with my family. She passed away when i was ten, and there is not a day in my life where I have not thought of her. Although I still feel a dull sting from her death, after some time I have learned to accept it and remember her for everything she ever taught me.
As for my Halloween costume, I was a skunk. =) Not a full-on fur suit skunk. A cute one, but hopefully not trashy ha ha
I believe that when someone choosing to leave their family, that the rest of the family is forever changed. Knowing that someone you loved and you cared about chose to leave you is probably one of the most painful things a person can go through. If a family member or loved one left not by choice, but through some kind of tragedy, then some how I think it would be easier to accept. In that kind of situation, you would still know that that person loved you and didn't choose to abandon you. When a person does choose to leave, I think that when you are younger that it is easiest to deal with. It seems as though when you are younger, you can cope more easily with change. Also when you are younger, you don't truly understand the reasons why someone would leave, or understand what exactly it means.
I personally know what it's like to have a family member leave you. When my father left to Asia when I was about 9 I didn't quite understand what was going on, apart from feeling sad that is. When I was 13 my father told me he was probably never coming back. When I was 13, I started to understand exactly what this all meant, and how much it really hurts to have someone choose to leave as though you never really mattered in the first place.
Anyyywhoooo those are my thoughts!! Hope everyone had a good Halloween! :)
Hmm...tough topic. Like usual, I am pretty torn and can see where everyone is coming from, even with differing opinions.
Personally, I think it is generally harder for a person to lose someone by choice. Like others said, it can leave the family and loved ones with a lot of guilt, and asking questions like, "Is there something I could have done to prevent this?" or "What did I do wrong?" Though this may be true in most cases, sometimes it can be for the better. If two parents are in an unhappy marriage, sometimes it is better for the two spouses to seperate or get a divorce, for their own sanity, as well as their children's. It can allow for a happier living environment, though the children may still question whether or not the separation was his or her fault.
Losing a family member by death is never easy. Even if you are not close with the person who passes, it is a definite state that you will live with for the rest of your life. You will never have the chance of reconnecting, if it was a possibility in the first place.
For me, I have had a really difficult time with the loss of my father--I feel like I mention it a lot, which I feel weird about, but it's hard not to talk about when you're taking a class about family! Still, I'm sorry if it's excessive. Anyway, his death is more complicated than the "usual" passing of, say, a grandparent who died of old age. My dad wasn't even 60 yet, and I do absolutely blame it on the fault of the hospital. There was some shady stuff going on...but that's a whole other story. The point is, it can be even more difficult to deal with the passing of the family member if you feel anger towards another living person or group, rather than some larger force. You want to get revenge, but more than likely you just can't, for whatever reason.
I also think that in some cases it can be easier for a younger child to deal with the absence of a family member, at least right when it happens, mostly because they do not fully understand the consequences of what has happened. However, in my case (sorry), I was 14 and just a freshman in high school when my dad died, so I often feel like I should have had more time with him. I often think about how he never saw me drive a car, graduate from high school, get my first job, or any of those things, and he won't be there in the future either. This is where it can get difficult--I sometimes feel guilty for not knowing him better when he was here, and perhaps others feel this way as well.
Whew, I hope I'm making sense! My mind is running a mile a minute. All in all, the ability to cope with the absence of a family member really depends on the situation one is in.
Also, I was Envy Adams from Scott Pilgrim (if anyone has seen or read it...) and my boyfriend was Todd. My other two friends were Scott and Ramona. Haha! Hope everyone had a great Halloween! :D
I think that if a family member leaves, the ones that are left behind cope until they figure out a new way of living like Lauren said. It’s normal, but not the same as it had been, obviously, before the person left. And I definitely makes a different whether or not they person dies or leaves by choice. And it also makes a difference when they die, how they died. I don’t know if anyone saw the movie Letters to Juliet but in the movie the main male character, Charlie, lost his parents when he was young to a car accident or something along those lines and then he tells Sophie later that she doesn’t know what it’s like to lose someone when her mom left her when she was young. Charlie’s grandmother then tells him that this happened and he tells her it’s not the same, but his grandma points out that he knows that his parents loved him when they died, but Sophie’s mother left her by choice. I think this is very true but I also think it pertains to when a parent takes their own life by choice (or even a child/teen for that matter) because they are choosing to leave behind their children (or their parents) in grieve and always asking the question “why”. As far as who has the hardest time returning to normal, well I think, in a way, they are equal parts hard but just different in coping. The left behind spouse has to deal with the one they loved leaving them and the children have to try and understand that life isn’t going to be the same. If they die, again, the spouse has to deal with the absence of their loved one, but in a whole other way, maybe wondering why that persons life was taken or what not and the children have to be told (like Buckley) that this person is now gone and they aren’t coming back (tell them they are with God or something like that) so that they understand.
And I was a Greek goddess for Halloween.:)
I entirely agree with Frances on this one. It is always hard when a family member leaves or dies, but even worse when it was by his or her own choice. It takes an incredible amount of time for the absence of a close family member to subside from the mind, but I think a herculean deal more when it was on purpose. I also agree with Carolyn; There are some people who will never recover from his or her loss, the circumstances don't matter.
I've been trying to figure out a similar question but instead of leaving by choice, the knowledge that someone is going to leave, like a sick family member versus one that just leaves. It has been impossible for me to figure out which is worse, but I think that's because I've never experienced an immediate departure in my immediate family, and it's hard to distinguish if I don't know (and don't want to know) from my own experience.
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