I thank God every day for the wonderful life I've been able to enjoy and for that reason I try to ignore or at least minimalize the few tough times I've had to deal with. After reading this far in this thread I realize how incredibly lucky I've been so far in this life and pray it keeps up. I'm sure I have things I could look back on and wonder how I got through them, but none of them would be worth mentioning among the pain mentioned in this thread. I've been lucky to have 7 brothers and sisters who have been pretty supportive to each other over the years in our own way- even though we have had our disagreements we always forgive and forget and move along with our lives pretty unscathed. Our parents went pretty peacefully, only a small intermittent bout of dementia showing with my mother at times, but both fought to the end until their bodies just wore out in their mid eighties. Not sure if we were taught or just accepted that death was a part of life but that is kind of how we have dealt with it in our time. My FIL and MIL both passed last year and it was tough watching my wife and her family going through it, but there was plenty of time and gatherings to deal with the grief and both went as peacefully as can be expected.
My heart goes out to those who have suffered and hope there is peace to be found in time. Just goes to show you don't really know someone until you've walked in their shoes...
