Hi Tiv,

I just saw this posting and I will keep it short and sweet.

I can and do relate to everything you wrote here and I have some things to share with you in private, alone when we talk later. Most of what I wish to say to you is from my own personal experiences and my own personal beliefs and philosophies. I am still in shock over what happened to your co-worker too.

I realize the anniversary for you father is coming, too, and just as I offered to you in conversation the other day, I want you to know and to remember, if you need Anything At All, I am 110% here for you. I will drop whatever i must if you feel you need company, even if only to chat for distraction. I also realize you arent sure what you will be needing or wanting since this is all so new to you... whatever you come to feel you desire in order to aid in lightening this load, I Am There! I Will Be Here.

Point is, I understand how you are feeling and I want to help if I can. I have come to consider you a closer friend as of late and... although I do feel helpless to an extent, I still believe I can offer you some form of support so please... utilize me if need be!

I am here. I care for you and we have a great level of comfort so please do not hesitate to reach out if you should need me. I extend myself to you, and i make this offer to so few. We can talk in a few hours by phone and hash some things out. I just want to talk with you about these things one on one, between us, privately, but I recall you speaking to me about this post, saw it and felt the urge to respond like i said i would.

I am so sorry you have had to go through these two things so close in date to one another. You don't have to go through it alone though. Come to me any time. I am your friend and I will stick with you. xoxoxoxox

I have to live without fear because does pleased me, still.

Energy cannot be created, nor can it be destroyed. Albert Einstein said that.
Since we human beings ARE energy. We have come, and we will return, to energy.
Theists believe the energy is God.
Atheists believe it is not.
So the passing on of a being who posses spiritual energy, meaning being connected & aware of your own energy, is just the transition of physical matter. The energy, or spirit, lives on & on & on, as an energy form. Whether it reincarnates or not is for another discussion.
But you sure can't knock that old Atheist Einstein!

Back when I was a believer, I cherished the memories I had of the deceased when they were still alive. I do the same now. Even when I believed I didn't get much comfort from the idea of an afterlife.

I'm very sorry for your losses. My dad was only 56 when he died, back in 1990. Way too young to go! You could attribute the grief and pain you feel to the fact that you were so fortunate to have somebody in your life who was worthy of your love, respect, and admiration. Even if it was for too short a time.

I handle the death of my son very badly. My boy was only 19. I am empty, and so is the universe.

regardless of being religious... everybody grieves a little differently...

I had a friend who killed himself and I went to his funeral and watched his father throw dirt on his grave. I cried a lot and drank and smoked weed. I also was surrounded by friends and we tried to make jokes to help cheer us up but it didn't really work... we would just burst out crying again.
It was a feeling of... "I don't know what to do with myself... " also experienced extreme feelings of uncomfortableness because it was too real... too raw... I also hid in the car away from everybody for the most part...

It can be very hard to deal with... I couldn't imagine losing my mother and I am scared of when that day comes...

Sorry to hear of your losses. Death is an old friend (or frenemy) of mine. I've lost a parent, a sibling, a wife and a child due to "unexpected" "out of band" death, and currently, our neighbor just got a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer which has already metastized, so it's an almost certian death sentence. I've also had other acquaintances and co-workers die in baroque ways.

Grief is a process that doesn't change depending on your [mis]beilefs about [im]mortality. Loss is loss. To the extent that you're emotionally porous / empathic, it's also painful to bear witness to, even if you're not particularly close to the person.

You may wish to read about grief and the field of thanatology, which is all about death, dying and bereavement. This will teach you the basics: grief is highly individualistic, has its own timetable, and is not very linear -- it's described as a "grief spiral" in the literature. So just when you think you've "moved on" something triggers you and turns you back into a puddle. Also the intensity of grief tends to relate to the degree to which the person who died was a part of your daily life and/or was of great symbolic importance to you. Finally ... facing and accepting and integrating the fact of your own mortality helps the process as it's then purely about the loss and not about how it reminds you of your own night terrors.

The main advice is to be patient with yourself and with the process. Your subconscious knows how to spoon-feed your "new reality" to you in doses that you can manage. Learn to observe and allow your grief. It is a natural process; let it run its course.

I’m not an atheist—not anything, but I feel that the sense of identity as an individual person is just an illusion to begin with. Also space, time and matter are illusions. The entire chain of organisms can be thought of as a single entity.

If you go into a forest you’ll see death and destruction everywhere, but viewed from afar, the forest is a living, beautiful thing.

Identity with the forest rather than with an individual tree.

I'm sorry to hear of your loss. None of us, whether we are religious believers or atheists, finds it easy to deal with the loss of loved ones and those close to us. We all need to go through the grieving process and eventually come to terms with our loss. It sounds as if, working close to sickness, violence, and death, you feel you ought to be able to deal with it more easily, but I think the death of someone close, like your father, is always different. It is good that your job has not hardened you. Let yourself take time to grieve and talk to people about it, especially those who knew your father and will remind you of good times.

First off, my condolences on the loss of your father.

As for your question, when my wife died in 2010, I was finding that Buddhism--a religion I've flirted with after having lived in Asia for a while--wasn't helping me much with the grief because the loss I was feeling was related to my feelings of attachment. I asked in a Buddhist blog how it was possible to love someone for 22 years and remain in a state of nonattachment. The reply was something on the order of "Honor the love, experience the grief, and acknowledge that impermanence is an integral part of our lives." That didn't really answer my question, didn't even come close, but in the long run, it helped me a lot in dealing with the grief.

As a Transhumanist I'm hoping technology will have cured ageing and death before I'm done.

I was an Atheist before I became a Transhumanist though.

My Father died a few months ago and my older Brother died when I was 13. My Brother's death hit me hard as I struggled to come to terms with this realisation. I think I resolved this by realising life is not fair and we are all in the same boat.

Sleep is like death in that we are not conscious for most of that time. I think that's why I don't like going to sleep much.

I resolved to not get too bogged down with the horror which is death and to live life as fully as possible. I feel if I do everything I've ever wanted I'll be more prepared when the end comes.

That which cannot be altered must be endured.

My own morality is not much of an issue. Once I'm gone I won't know it anymore. I hope that it won't be too painful, but again, once it's over, it won't matter anymore. It is sad knowing that I can't spent time with loved ones who have died and very hard to accept that they are gone.

The Army kind of changed my views on life and after life, there is an afterlife,death cannot be the end.We are almost alone in our mourning of our dead as a loss,I believe because it is in the program for us to feel this way.We must for the delusion to work, you see death must be unattractive and black,dark.Who revels rotting in a box,not that it should matter right.. you're dead.But conversely how can anyone speak authoritatively about heaven or hell without having been there.I believe we will be born again. My dreams used to freak me out until I was taught they are musings of the lives I have lived.I was born on the 11th@ 11:11,if you follow Numerology you know what my life has been.I don't believe in angels or fairies,well maybe fairies, because have been lucky beyond words.That black cat ...got him beat, he's scared of me.Death is not the end..not a closed box... but a doorway..a path.We all must return to the energy,we are pure energy.Ekg's monitor the hearts electrical current Electrocardiogram. Ecg's ..Electroencephalogram.. monitors the electric energy in the brain. And finally if you have sudden heart failure or complete stoppage they bring in the crash cart which re- charges the heart with...wait for it.ELECTRICITY!So there it is kids,and I posit: if the gift of life is so amazing shouldn't death be just the same if not more so.Keeping with the duality theory....discuss"

Every since the dawn of man we have demonstrated a great discomfort at accepting our own mortality. This is the very reason why religion was invented.
However, in my view there is nothing to lament. We are here temporarily and that is just that. But that does not mean that our lives are without meaning or without purpose. We are in essence an extension of our parents just like our children are an extention of us and as such a legacy that we will leave behind.

I'm sorry for the losses you've experienced.

Mortality is a fact of life. Whether you believe in an afterlife or not, you have to come to terms with death. It seems to me that it's even harder for believers to accept even though it should logically be easier.

My own father died 11 years ago. It's complicated for me, because our relationship wasn't always a smooth one. I try to focus on the better times when I remember my father, and try to accept that even though he died relatively young, at 62, he lived the life he wanted and in the last 15 years he was happy.

I've never been close to anyone who was murdered. I don't know what I'd feel in that situation, whether anger or grief would be the stronger emotion. I guess it might depend on the circumstances, but I cannot even guess.

You learn to cope, that's all I can do. It gets easier with time

As an atheist I'm much more at peace with death than when I was a fundamentalist whacko. I don't worry about them going to live in an eternal torturous Hell. I know they will be like they were before they were born. I think non existence is better than "peace". With peace there is the suggestion that there is something else that is not peaceful. Would it be possible to be at peace knowing that your relatives and friends were suffering in Hell? How could peace exist in such a case? I am happy with what we know and con observe. That when our brain stops functioning we for all practical purposes simply don't exist and thus there is no possibility of suffering.

They're dead....gone.
That's about it.

I have faced death myself 3 times in the last 8 years. I don't worry about it now. Leukemia, heart failure and car accident.