Quote:
Originally Posted by Bucho
And with your line of work you must come face to face with it on a regular basis Dean.
I feel similar about (physical) trauma. When I was eleven I witnessed two cars collide head-on and in the moments which followed literally watched three people die, one as my mother administered first aid. Those three were strangers to me but in 2009 a woman I knew quite well died in front of me after falling from a deck, this time with me trying to help save her. She was fit, healthy and vivacious but within 15 minutes she was gone and the world had changed. Coming face-to-face with sudden death can't help but make you see life and mortality differently.
All that stuff about saving phone messages rang very true for me too. I not only do the same thing, I've "interviewed" my parents on video and back in the day I did the same thing with my Oma (grandma in Dutch). She died in 2006 and now the most precious thing I own now are those videos of her telling stories of her life.
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Yeah, exposure to death on the job is pretty much a job requirement. I can (sadly) recall every one of them and they do imprint on you. I carry alot of survivor guilt too, having watched patients succumb because of their treatment while I got through it - I didn't take much time off when I relapsed the second time in 2008.
I can only imagine the trauma you must have gone through, having witnessed that terrible accident and having to deal with the immediate passing. And I guess the impact of that experience wouldn't necessarily have hit you immediately either. I hope you were given the opportunity to work through that.
I was at my grand father's side when he died in 1993 and it wasn't peaceful. Having fought adenocarcinoma for 18 months, Pa died fighing for every last breath, drowning in fluid filled lungs.
I mistakenly went to see him in state at the funeral home afterwards and came away wishing I hadn't. It wasn't him in the casket. They'd made him up too wierdly and it was just wrong.
Strangely, I rather the images of him fighting for those last breaths over his body in the casket. While the last living hours were horrible - they were living hours...if that makes any sense.