On death, dying and loss

DOWNEY – No matter how bad or good they have it, in some cases people welcome death, not knowing what it actually means to end up dead. And for some people like myself, I try to run away from the thought of it happening to me or anyone I know. I do not like death in any shape or form -- just the thought of it makes me cringe. To other people death is the norm; they don’t cringe, they don’t flinch, they go on living as if it was just another chapter in a book they just keep reading. However, when I read this book, I read every chapter and with each page I know for a fact that the inevitable death is waiting for me. Even if it takes 30 pages or 300 pages, it doesn’t stop you from finishing the book because you know once you’re done with that chapter, it’s just about time to start cringing because someone else you know is gone.

Dying isn’t any better compared to death but the only thing I fear about dying is wondering whether or not I made a name for myself, wondering if my life was even worth walking in or if I’ll just end up being another person buried next to a thousand other corpses that no one remembers in a year or two.

I can not stand the reality of a friend or someone I love dying because the moment they are gone is the moment you face the greatest pain. The worst moment of your life is realizing the person you want to turn to isn’t there anymore. The feeling of losing someone is nothing compared to losing an ex lover or losing a piece of your body; the feeling of losing someone you love is like standing alone at a beach and looking at the smiles and beauty of the crystal blue water and the sound of it crashing on the shore, but the moment you return to reality, to see the smiles turn into frowns and that once crystal blue water turn into a green and muddy ocean, and the once soothing sounds of waves crashing on the shore turn into a sound that you hear in your nightmares.

The only reason I know the feeling of losing someone you love is because when I was 16 I lost my favorite hero. I lost the greatest mentor that anyone can ask for and lost my role model -- the person I lost was my dad.

Going from a happy teen, enjoying high school and the fun and no-worry life, to becoming the man of the house and having to make sure to keep your family together because they are not as strong as you, is hard because you feel obligated to not show that you are also in pain. But you do it because you love your family more than anything in the world.

The only thing I can tell anyone that sadly ends up in my shoes at my age or younger is that no matter how much time has passed and no matter how much you pray or cry, thinking and wishing that the pain will go away, sadly, it won’t go away. It’s something you will have for the rest of your life. Just by seeing an old photo you will start to regain memory you thought you didn’t have anymore and that’s when reality sets back in and it gets you all over again.

People that are happy in life after losing a loved aren’t really happy, they just learn to adapt to reality and for some of us we can’t adapt to it because we can’t let go of what we wish we still had. It’s a never-ending fairy tale that starts off great till you get to the part of the story where the princess gets taken away, and that’s the part of the story people can’t get over, meaning the princess was the loved one getting taken away and sadly they can’t get them back like in a fairy tale. But all I can say is that you don’t have to let them die because all you need is to have them in your heart and that’s honestly the best place for them, having them in your heart and memory.

It may hurt sometimes, believe me, but it’s for the best and those memories -- no matter how bad they hurt you -- just remember that in that moment you were doing those things was the moment in which you wish that moment would never end because you had the time of your life.

Jonathan Paez is a Warren High graduate and wrote this essay for a school project. He requested it be shared in the hopes it would help others.

**********

Published: Nov. 27, 2014 - Volume 13 - Issue 33