Maybe I’m missing something.. but in my own case, my first experience with death was when my grandfather – Eldon Moreman – passed away when I was fourteen years old. My father was the one that told my brother and I that morning.. I’ll never forget what happened… it was sudden and unexpected..
My grandmother passed years later, in 1996.. it was more expected.. she was 82 and was suffering from some heart problems – she had a heart attack about eighteen months prior to this and had been recommended by her physician to have a valve replacement.. she chose not to risk the surgery.. a decision that we never doubted was the right one to make….
But as much as we expected that she would pass one day, it still marks one of the worst days of my life… I spoke at her funeral – you can read my eulogy in the ‘Writings’ section….
To this day, almost twenty-nine years after I met them for the first time as a newborn, my grandparents remain – short of my parents – the most influential people in my life…
Stephanie Kesler: “For many of us, our first adult experience with the process of death occurs when one our parents dies. I know this sounds bizarre, but I think their experience of death is perhaps one of their last gifts to us.” [Scripting News]