Dear Barbara,
Is the death process different when a person is killed by violence—such as a gunshot, stabbing, or physical beating—than when death comes suddenly through an accident? In both situations, death is immediate, and the person doesn't have time to sort through thoughts or see landscapes.
Those killed by violence or any other way where death is immediate (car accident, fall, stroke, heart attack that results in immediate death) do not follow any of the "rules" of dying. A person is literally alive one moment and dead the next.
BUT if a person is not immediately dead, if there is time between injury and death, then there will be the same signs that there are when a person approaches death gradually.
In the movies, a person says something pertinent, meaningful, and important and then closes their eyes and is dead. In real life, from the perspective of an unexpected death, the person will generally be non-responsive in the minutes to hours and sometimes days before death. Or, if they are talking, they aren't making sense.
This kind of dying is like a gradual death and follows the same patterns as someone dying from disease or old age.
What do the survivors of someone who has died a sudden, unexpected death do? Our grief will be different. We will need different closure. We will be aware of all the things we wish we had done but didn’t. We will have anger and confusion.
Aside from the closure that funerals and visitations bring, we can do more personal, private activity. Write the person a letter. Put all your thoughts - positive and negative - on paper. Either put the letter in the casket or give it to the funeral home to put in the casket if there is a closed casket. You can also create your own ritual of burning the letter and scattering the ashes to the wind.
Fast death is harder on us, the survivors. The person that died literally doesn’t know what hit them, and has had no time to think. It is we, the survivors, that have no completion, no point of ending. We have lots and lots of disbelief, unanswered questions, and anger. We will probably carry some of those feelings with us forever.
Something more...
Grief after a sudden death can feel isolating. This is not something you should carry alone. Find someone who can listen without trying to fix you. Someone who can sit with your anger, your questions, and your disbelief. Support does not make the grief go away—but it can make it more bearable.
