Metal Reviews

I've been thinking a lot about death lately, mostly because my father met his demise a few weeks back and i've sort of been in a haze not knowing how or what to feel right now. I got the news around midday on a monday...my mother rang the doorbell and as i opened the door, i instinctively knew something was terribly wrong. As she said the words "Alex, you father is dead" grief and sorrow hit me like a sledgehammer and i broke down. I saw his body on the following saturday and man was that hard! My uncle had to support me so i would not fall to the floor, i still remember thinking that i sounded like a wounded animal when i saw his body as i was sobbing and whimpering. The pain of losing a parent is so profound it's really hard to imagine or explain. I can't hardly look at his picture without tearing up but it's only been 2 weeks so i guess that's to be expected. I find myself thinking: Where is daddy now? Is he anywhere at all? Heaven? Hell? Somewhere else entirely...Or maybe there is just darkness...Maybe we will see each other again? Who knows...It kills me that he was taken from me now that we were really starting to connect on a father-son level we've never been at before and things were really looking good for him. He was getting his truck driving license that he talked so much about, he had loving and devoted wife and he was really happy he was in relationship were he could be himself. He would have been 48 in april. I'm really going to miss him

How do you guys feel about the subject of death and have you lost someone dear to you?

48 is terribly young to go, my condolences.

I try not to think about death, to be honest. Only one gone so far in my lifetime is a grandfather, which was horrible.

Thank you for the condolences, i appreciate it. You know, i honestly thought that my mom was going to tell me that either my grandmother or grandfather had passed away. I did not expect it to be my father at all.

I've lost my grandpa, a good friend, and two dogs. I got a little bit sad with each but nowhere near grief. I'm not sure if that's the healthy reaction or not.

48 is super young and that's awful to hear though :(

My condolendes to you and your mom. I lost my uncle about 7 years ago. He persihed as he had stomach cancer. I lost my granfather in the same week in which I lost my uncle. The first few months are difficult. It will get easier as time passes you by. I haven't lost a parent although whenever I think about, it terrfies the hell out of me. It's devasting as I can only imagine. Keep strong.

Sorry to hear about your loss, my condolences to you and your family.

I used to work in a cemetery for about a year and have buried people from 100 years of age to 1 day old. The main thing I took from it was to take advantage of being alive every day. Try to live life in such a way that if you were to die today, you wouldn't look back with regrets of things you wish you would have done and people you wish you would have spent more time with.
As far as an afterlife, no one really knows. I just like to think that when we go we are at peace and not in any pain, where ever that may be.

You worked in a cemetery!?

My dad was about that old when he died. The whole being a ball of emotions and basically a mess will persist for some time. I don't how to say this best, but I'll try: don't get too hung up on it. Like deal with it, go through all of the emotions that you need to, but at some point you have to move past it. I've literally watched my sister for the last ten years ruin her life, because she could never move past our dad dying. Your life is going to change, but you'll grow and learn and at the end of the day, I'm sure your dad loved you. You weren't able to do everything that you might have ever wanted with the guy and he isn't going to be there, but that doesn't change the past and what you had.

Yep, Mt. Moriah Cemetery. Best job I ever had.

Some really thoughtful words from several people in this thread, which I am unable to match. I'm very sorry you lost your father at that age, but I'm glad you decided to share that loss with us. Like scumbag said, existence is what we can be certain of, and right now you are honoring your father's memory by grieving for him.

I've yet to lose a close loved-one but I can only imagine what you're going through right now.

Good luck brother!

Thanks for all kind and encouraging words everyone, i really appreciate it guys. Time will heal all wounds eventually...

Hey man, firstly my condolences to you and your family.

Unfortunately, I know what you're going through as I lost my own father back in November. Now that's it's been three months I have gotten back into the "normal routine" of things but I still think about him almost every day. Even after that amount of time things are still going to come up that will remind you of him. Watching the Super Bowl last week for me was tough because that was something I always watched with my dad. In fact pretty much anything sports related makes me think of him. I couldn't watch hockey at all for the first month because I just kept thinking of him and with baseball season around the corner it might be tough again because he loved the Blue Jays the most.

I'm sure you've heard this a lot by now but it is important to stay strong and just be there for your family. Not sure what your work situation is but don't feel the need to rush back to work for the sake of trying to get things back to normal right away. Take as much time as you can.

Edit: Just noticed you mentioning when he had passed. Hopefully by now you're back at work and if not that's totally okay.

i'm really sorry to hear about your loss. hope you're doing better now.

generally i think i feel similarly to Trapt, but a bit more distant perhaps. i think having the rest of your family around, staying close and staying strong (not as in cold, but as in being ready for life after your father) together, that's the most important thing in this stage.

there was a topic here, can't find it now, about dealing with death actually. anyway, both my parents are dead. my mother died when i was 7, and then my dad died when i was almost 16. i remember i was closer to her than i was to him, but maybe because i was 7 i didn't feel the loss i think i would have felt had i been older. i remember the first and only time i cried about it, i was 12, telling a teacher about it (can't remember why)

i didn't get on very well with my dad, he travelled a lot for work and just generally we had very little in common. you know how you tell yourself stupid things when you're a kid, i thought i wouldn't miss him. he had cancer but was doing fine, i remember i visited him on a sunday and everyone was commenting how good he looked (and they weren't just being nice - he looked so healthy i didn't even visit him the next day, he actually made you stop worrying), then on tuesday it all suddenly went to shit. i never thought cancer would kill him until it really did, never thought there was a real risk of him not being around. i cried at the hospital when he was alive but barely, but went to school the next day - i wanted to keep my mind off it. i felt fine at the funeral until just before his cremation, when i cried again, it was even worse than the first time. that's when it hit me that i cared much more than i thought i did, and i have to say it gave me comfort, for some reason. i remember one of the things i thought about the most was that he really cared a lot about appearances and what other people thought, and i felt frustrated that i didn't tell him at the hospital that i had finally bought a new backpack to replace the old ripped one he kept telling me was making me look bad. you think the most random things in these cases, i guess.

i think between having dealt with my mother's death when i was fairly young, and having had the closest, most supportive family i could have asked for, none of this really got to me. i go whole days without even thinking about either parent. not to say i don't care, it's just that after a while, the hole left in you because you miss them will get covered up at some point.

as for religion and an afterlife, i was raised by a fairly religious Hindu family. i stopped believing in god after my dad died. he was by all accounts a very good person (i've been to a few funerals, his was the biggest i ever saw), tons of people kept telling me how he did something for them at some point, and after my mother died he became even more religious. he remarried when i was 14, and it just seemed terribly unfair to me that he could be so good and so loved, keep (hell, renew) his faith in god after what happened to him, and even try to rebuild that part of his life, only to die with cancer barely 2 years after remarrying. my sister and stepmother are both quite religious to this day, as is most of my family.