I remember burying a girl fourteen years of age who had died with a ruptured appendix... I buried a good many people that I knew, some of whom I loved.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
When I had to bury my child, I probably didn't start grieving until a year and a half later.
My parents were mourning the death of my sister. She was killed in a car accident before I was born, and I didn't know she existed until I was 13 or 14 years old. I knew I was growing up in a house where people were angry and sad.
My grandmother was a very tough woman. She buried three husbands and two of them were just napping.
My mom died when I was 11 years old.
My mother died of cystic fibrosis before I knew her. I was two years old, and I don't remember her. I do remember, though, when it was just my father and me, before he met the woman who would become the mother who raised me, before my younger sister, Gillian. It was just the two of us, and he was my whole world.
I'll never forget the first time I saw someone who had died. It was my grandfather. And I knelt next to his coffin. And all I could do was eye level was look at his hands. They were enormous hands. And all I could think was, 'Those hands dug freedom for me.'
My grandparents, like many genocide survivors, took most of their stories to their graves.
When I was a child I had a best friend who lived across the road from me. When her mother died unexpectedly it was like losing a member of my own family. I think I am still affected by the memory of that loss.
My second wife, the mother of one of my sons, died of murder. I was not with her, but I could have saved her. I think.
My dad was diagnosed with cancer, so we ended up burying him a year to the day that he was diagnosed.