Re: What is the most tragic thing you\'ve ever had to deal with
 

Not me but my cousin.

He's a lawyer, working to put his wife through med school. 2 weeks after she graduates from school, she files for divorce. He's obviously torn apart.

A few years go by and he finds somebody new. They get married. Less than 1 month after they get married she gets into a terrible car wreck and dies.

He just keeps plodding through his days, knowing that if he was able to find somebody after the first debacle, he will find somebody after the second tragic debacle.

Re: What is the most tragic thing you\'ve ever had to deal with
 

[ QUOTE ]
Not me but my cousin.

He's a lawyer, working to put his wife through med school. 2 weeks after she graduates from school, she files for divorce. He's obviously torn apart.

A few years go by and he finds somebody new. They get married. Less than 1 month after they get married she gets into a terrible car wreck and dies.

He just keeps plodding through his days, knowing that if he was able to find somebody after the first debacle, he will find somebody after the second tragic debacle.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow. Your poor cousin. That's just horrible

Re: What is the most tragic thing you\'ve ever had to deal with
 

16 year old sister dead in a car wreck when I was 15.
Dad never quite got over it, suicided 10 years later.
Ex #1 ignored the divorce papers and moved out of state with my only kid, now I see him once a year.

Got through all those things, tough, but no problem, still was the same old me after awhile. But #2 ex, oh man, marry a bi-polar!!!??? My friggin eye is still twiching 7 months after the divorce is final, don't know if I will ever recover financially, and I still wake up in the middle of the night with panic attacks fearing she is going to show up on my doorstep one day.

Re: What is the most tragic thing you\'ve ever had to deal with
 

[ QUOTE ]
Not me but my cousin.

He's a lawyer, working to put his wife through med school. 2 weeks after she graduates from school, she files for divorce. He's obviously torn apart.

A few years go by and he finds somebody new. They get married. Less than 1 month after they get married she gets into a terrible car wreck and dies.

He just keeps plodding through his days, knowing that if he was able to find somebody after the first debacle, he will find somebody after the second tragic debacle.

[/ QUOTE ]
good lesson for him to not ignore the signals.

Re: What is the most tragic thing you\'ve ever had to deal with
 

For me, it's probably my grandmother. Seven years ago she had a stroke and wound up completely debilitated--not unlike OP's father, but she was completely uncommunicative. She was in a vegetative state for the next three years. She never showed any improvement and she lost an arm a few months before the end to gangrene.

This was brutal on my mother's side of the family. My uncle is a neurologist and was visiting her when she had the stroke, so he was a) beating himself up the whole time for not recognizing the signs, and b) checking day after day for any improvement, real or imagined--he wound up quitting his practice, he was spending so much time with her.

It went on for way too long. My mother, aunt and other uncle all agreed Grandma would've completely hated it, but since the family couldn't reach a consensus to turn off the machines, she was left hanging there. Eventually it reached the point where if my aunt came to visit Grandma and saw my first uncle's car there, she would just pull out.

Let that be a lesson to you--all of you need living wills. It's not enough to let your loved ones know what you want; in situations like this logical thought goes out the window.

Re: What is the most tragic thing you\'ve ever had to deal with
 

[ QUOTE ]
So, what huge scars do you have from past tragic events? How did you get thru it all? Any lessons learned?

[/ QUOTE ]

my mom died, slowly. started when I was 12 and finished when I was 29 (now 33). I miss her [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

ingesting enormous amounts of mind-altering substances.

the sooner one starts dealing with their problem(s), the sooner you get through it. at the end of the day, the substances didn't help

Re: What is the most tragic thing you\'ve ever had to deal with
 

[ QUOTE ]
My mom finding an old high school boyfriend on the Internet, and leaving my father for him. She was 60, and they had been married for 40 years.

WTF?

[/ QUOTE ]

While this might not be the most tragic thing in the thread, it is certainly the most absurd imo.

Re: What is the most tragic thing you\'ve ever had to deal with
 

[ QUOTE ]
Let that be a lesson to you--all of you need living wills. It's not enough to let your loved ones know what you want; in situations like this logical thought goes out the window.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thank you very much for this wisdom! Yes, my wife and I need to fill out living wills, cause we both are VERY scared to be terminal and hooked up on machines when death would be so much better.

Very sorry to hear what your family went thru with grandma.

Take care.. BB

Re: What is the most tragic thing you\'ve ever had to deal with
 

QFT - believe me, nothing is sadder than a bunch of family members tearing each other up about a decision that should have been made by the person involved before the [censored] hit the fan. Not much fun for me, either, being told to "do everything" for someone who needs a resurrection, not a doctor.

For me, my 42 yr. old brother dying of lung cancer - 10x smarter than me, 10x a better person - an MD who smoked....go figure. I miss him every day. As do his widow and 5yr. old son.

Kick the ciggies, guys.

MM MD

Re: What is the most tragic thing you\'ve ever had to deal with
 

Within a period of 6 months my best friend's father died of lung cancer, my girlfriend's father was diagnosed with lung cancer and another friend of mine, his father too, passed of lung cancer.

None of them smoked!

GF's father is doing ok now, so we're hoping for the best.