Turning Points
Death Doula Randi
Turning Points. We hear these words and perhaps we go back to a time where we accomplished something, or did something enjoyable. The person we were before that moment is gone, and the person we have become after that moment is entirely different. - That, is a turning point.
We will all go through many turning points in our lives. Some good, some difficult, and in the end, each one of them will help to sculpt us into something different.
Just last night I was warming my dinner up, scrolling through a streaming site looking for something to watch, when I saw a documentary pop up about the Tsunami in 2004. I remember this Tsunami like it was yesterday. It rocked the entire globe. Multiple countries were hit, multiple coast lines, thousands killed, hundreds of thousands displaced, it was quite unlike anything I had ever witnessed before.
I pressed play on the show and started watching it. Suddenly, about ten minutes in, it occurred to me that my sister died two years before the Tsunami. Wow. I couldn’t believe it. I also couldn’t believe how I easily remembered the details of this catastrophic event, when I know, in 2004, I was heavily numbing with drugs and alcohol to try to avoid the pain of my sisters death. My brain started whirling. She died a year before American Idol first aired, and what a shame that was, she was an incredible singer. She died before IPhones. She died before Facebook.
In fact the more I sat and thought about it, the more I realized how different the world is now, compared to before her death. Almost everything that is popular right now, or has been for the last 20 years, she never even knew about.
6 months before she died, the attack on 9/11 happened. That was the last significant world event, that took place.
I do this often. Think about things in terms of Pre-Shaunas-Death, and Post-Shaunas-Death. Think about things before I was grief stricken, and after I was grief stricken. The biggest turning point of my life. One that I wish I could erase, but also understand that it led me to be motivated to stand strong in my career path, to advocate for others, and to love hard.
Who we are before a loss is not who we will be after a loss. How we think about things, how we see things, how we feel, how we move in the world, how we behave, all of it will change.
A piece of us truly does die when we lose someone, and it’s sad to think that they will never be here in the physical to know the person we become, the accomplishments we achieve, the paths we talk, and the journey we walk.
I know my sister is with me, and I know that she knows the above, and to have that confirmation in the physical would be everything, but of course… if I had that in the physical, I wouldn’t be who I am now.
Death Doula Randi