Be An Influencer, Life After Death…

Life after death is pretty much one of the hardest life events to deal with.  Those who influence us the most always seem to be gone too soon, leaving us with the pain of their absence.  I feel like I’ve been groomed to deal with death, I have coping techniques to deal with it that I developed on my own. Losing my dad at 9 years old and not fully understanding how I was supposed to deal with the emotional impact it had on me made me deal with death differently as I aged. I’ve always feared death, always.  Nobody ever talked about it to me. Truth is I don’t even like talking about death to other people, it hurts me to feel their pain but here I am writing a blog about it.  Maybe this is therapy for me.

As I think about the influencers in my life, they don’t appear on Facebook, IG, Twitter or any other social media platform. They aren’t rich and famous; they are everyday people that made an impact on my life starting at the age of 9.

My first influencer was my dad Vincent. He was my adopted father. Although he passed away when I was 9, I remember what a kind, gentle man he was, he was a handy man and always took care of his family. My 2 most loving relationships were with men that had those qualities. He passed away August, 1980, he was 40.

My second would be my adopted mother Joan. When my dad died, she fell apart. She was a stay at home mom with very little work experience and chose to live off of my dad’s pension. She sold our house, blew the money and we ended up homeless and living with my aunt and uncle. By the time I was 15 I had to drop out of high school to work full time so that we could get a place of our own. I was making 4 bucks an hour working for a cleaning company. From the age of 15 until the day she died I continued to care for her financially. Growing up quick at 15 years old and having to take on that kind of responsibility was a lot. Fast forward to 2009 and I lose my husband around the same age my mother lost hers. My husband was a reflection of all the great things my dad was and my daughter was 9, the same age I was when my dad died. Only difference was 4 years before my husband had passed I had gone back to school and completed my grade 12 and became the Valedictorian of my graduating class. I went on to continue my education in finance and in 2005 I landed an amazing job that I had for 14 years. So you see my mother’s struggles caused me to change the course of my future. I truly believe that I had to go through the loss of my father, the loss of our home, being homeless, quitting school and bouncing back many years later to prepare for my husband’s illness and death. All of my life since the age of 15, I knew I had to do better to prepare for the unknown and protect my kids from having to be in that same predicament my mom and I were in if it were to ever happen. Then it happened and I was prepared.  Being part of this situation made me the independent woman I am today. She passed away in February, 2010, she was 70.

I met my husband Mike, he showed me what unconditional love was all about and we got married just under a year before his death. He himself was a bit broke inside but chose to give me all of the love that I had missed out on before I had met him. He was kind, thoughtful, caring, loyal, an amazing father and faithful to name a few of his finer qualities. He was forgiving and never held a grudge. I learned so much from him, he completely changed me as a person and the course of my life after losing him. Without him I most certainly wouldn’t be where I am today in life, he opened my heart up when it was closed off to the world.  He passed away June 2009, 8 months before my mother passed away, he was 39.

My biological dad Shanny and I had a relationship that was full of fun, good times, laughs and most importantly pride. He was so proud to call me his daughter and that sits in my heart each and every day. I often meet older people and when I tell them he was my dad they say “oh you’re his daughter he was so proud of you” The feeling I feel is unconditional love to know he spoke so highly of me to strangers. He was contagious; he left a mark on everyone he encountered. He was full of life and he didn’t skip a beat when it came to sharing joy and happiness with people. When my dad passed away I met a lot of new people that he knew in the building where he lived, they loved him…they said he brought life to a place that was filled with people who had given up on life.  They loved him so much they put an 8×10 picture of him on each bulletin board on each floor in his building to honor him.  A piece of him lives in each one of those people in “his” building.  He passed October 2012, he was 66.

My grandmother Alice, although this seems small she literally made the best cornbread I’ve ever tasted and to this day I judge everybody’s cornbread and compare it to my grandmother’s…40 years later when cornbread is part of a meal I instantly think of her, smile and think to myself “this isn’t as good as my grandmother’s”. When my dad Vincent passed away the connection with my dad’s side of the family pretty much ended, a story for another blog I suppose. A few times I called her and I would sneak down to Mulgrave Park to see her, she’d make me cornbread knowing I was coming. I wish I had spent more time with her as I got older.  I’m not living with regrets, the course of my life was already laid out for me as I see it.  I don’t recall when she passed but she holds a very special place in my heart.

My Aunt Rose and Uncle Frankie had a red station wagon.  As a kid I got to drive in the back of it, I felt like the coolest kid when they took me for a drive.  They lived in a trailer park; I thought it was the coolest place to visit.  My aunt was a high class woman who worked for the military (as I recall it).  Every hair on her head was in place, her makeup was flawless and her attire was sharp. Now that I think about it, I have no clue what my Uncle Frankie actually did as a career.  Truth is it doesn’t matter they were a huge part of my childhood and every time I see a trailer park I think about them and the great childhood memories I had with them.  I don’t recall when they both passed away but my childhood is filled with memories of them.

So as we lose people to death, look at how they have influenced your life. We walk through life taking little bits and pieces of those “influencers” who have gone before us, making ourselves the “influencers” of the next generation. When we die that’s when those we have impacted chose to live life a bit differently. The pain never goes away it just settles in our soul.   We are born, we live life, we leave an impact on people, we die. When you think about it, that is the circle of life.  ~Holla

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