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Attachment to Family / Pets
Bunks
Australia Veteran
@genkaku's post "Dear God" got me thinking about my pets growing up and family in general.
It seems weird but when i think about my parents or one of my siblings dying I don't feel any sadness. Never have. While I enjoy their company (they're nice enough people), I have no strong emotional attachment to them.
Also, we always had dogs when I was growing up. I enjoyed playing with them but, to be honest, I never really cared when they died.
Am I a freak?
On the other hand, if I lost my wife or kids I would be devastated!
It seems weird but when i think about my parents or one of my siblings dying I don't feel any sadness. Never have. While I enjoy their company (they're nice enough people), I have no strong emotional attachment to them.
Also, we always had dogs when I was growing up. I enjoyed playing with them but, to be honest, I never really cared when they died.
Am I a freak?
On the other hand, if I lost my wife or kids I would be devastated!
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But at the same time, it almost is harder to imagine going through decades of life with my husband, our children moving out and moving on with their own lives, and then when we are old, having him die. I imagine in some way as you age you come to terms with everything but the thought of building and spending a life with someone to have them die seems very hard. Yet, older people I know (neighbors, grandparents) seem to accept it pretty well and mostly seem to get on with life better than most. Either that, or they die very shortly following their spouse.
They say losing a child is the worst pain one can imagine, and I believe that, and I think a lot of that comes in our belief that we are here to protect our children at all costs. How many days I've sat next to sick children wishing I could be sick for them. I'd give my life to save them without a question. And if something happens to them despite that need to protect them, it makes us feel as if we failed, and I think on some level we know having to live with *that* pain might be just as bad as losing them.
But at the same time, knowing my feelings about them does help me expand my compassion in ways I would find harder (though obviously I cannot imagine life without kids since I have them) without them. It is easier to look at "horrible" people and realize there were once cute little kids with the whole world in front of them, who maybe didn't have a parent to kiss away the night mares, and so on.
Is it that something we were attached to has now disappeared?
Did we have unresolved issues with that person that are now left hanging?
Is it empathy for everyone who will suffer from losing that person?
Does that death highlight our own inevitable death?
Were there hopes for interactions with that person that are now dashed?
Is it from the manner in which they suffered their own death?
All I think that I've seen about this is that
the degree of suffering that occurs with a loved ones death pertains directly
to the degree that their existence substantiated ones own identity.
Perhaps this is a cold view of grief but in my world, there is no better way to honor anothers passing than by allowing their death to be my teacher towards sufferings cessation.
My beautiful little girl is 4 in 2 days time.
Not sure if you know about Madeliene McCann? She was taken from her holiday apartment 9 days before she turned 4.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Madeleine_McCann
Every time I think about that it breaks my heart! I have been thinking about it a lot given the age similarities between her and my little girl.
What her parents are going through makes me want to cry.......those poor people.
I can't imagine enduring what that family has had to. Not only losing their child but being accused of killing her or knowing what happened as well. It would be very difficult to move on without answers.