This is Part II in the series which I previously started. I cover legal aspects in my book, “The Seven Deadly Sins That Can Wreck Your Alabama Injury Claim” which you can order for free by clicking here. I will cover some of the legal aspects later in this series. Today, I want to convey to you what life is like for the person who has lost their husband, wife, or child.
One of the first things that people ask is: are you married; have children; what do you do; and where did you go to school? It helps us get to know someone. For some, it’s whose your football team? (For those who are from out-of-state, this is an important question in Alabama. Some have argued that football is the great religion in the South.)
For the person who loses a loved one, they never dreamed they would be a widow, widower, or parent whose child was killed or died. It’s a bitter taste, the depths of which they never knew of until that terrible day. When their loved one died because of a wreck or accident, they are literally gone in an instant. You recall the last conversation with them. Sometimes it was minutes before the wreck. There were no goodbyes forever, just the end of a “normal” phone call or see you soon as they left the house.
Women who have lost their husband have expressed their profound loss with these words:
I lost my rock.
I’ve lost my whole reality.
I lost my best friend.
My children lost their daddy and I lost a husband, now what are we going to do?
When someone loses a spouse, they become lost. They no longer have their compass. When a child dies, being lost is also the case. The future they anticipated together is no longer a reality. When they go home, that special, most important person is no longer there to greet them. When the phone rings, they have to “learn” (because they cannot believe the reality) that it will not be their loved one on the phone. Their world has come apart.
Days no longer have any meaning. Friends fear mentioning the dead person’s name, because they don’t want to be insensitive. The dead person has become the elephant in the room that no one talks about. Missing from their normal day is hearing that person’s name – just as if they never existed.
Some try to keep busy so that they can “move on” as society, friends, and family expect. No one tells them what to do when the weekend arrives and they are home alone with nothing to do, they don’t want to do something alone, or the holidays with the many memories it evokes arrives, but that family member is not there. Depression is part of the process of their new, unexpected life. Why is it that when doing some things the mind works and in doing other things, it doesn’t seem to work at all? Grief.
That father or mother will not be there to provide their advice or shoulder to lean on when questions come up in their children’s lives. For daughters, Daddy will not be there to walk them down the aisle at their wedding.
On the financial front, if the person who died was working, suddenly the survivors are facing a financial crisis. Their finances were based on that person’s income coming in to pay the bills. They now don’t have that income. Even if there was life insurance, the bills just keep coming and unanticipated expenses are quite common. A life that was in order is now in complete disarray.
Most clients tell me that when they’ve lost a loved one, they feel an obligation to pursue a lawsuit because they have to stand up for the person who was killed. They feel that emotional burden to make sure that someone recognizes what happened and is held responsible. The world shouldn’t have another tragedy, the death of their loved one is too terrible for it to happen to someone else. They want to make sure that it does not happen to someone else like it did to them.
Each person who lost a loved one in one way or another has told me that they would trade any money recovered in a lawsuit, if it would bring back their loved one. Unfortunately, no court system can do that. Don’t think for a minute it’s all about the money. Love and the dignity of a loved one and preventing it happening to someone else are what these heroic family members are concerned about as they live their life without the person they loved so dearly.
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[...] a catastrophic injury. Sometimes, they contact me because of a death. (See my recent post about how the death of a loved one feels.) When someone is killed, the question many families face is how can they pay their bills, keep [...]