Okay so death sucks always. It’s rarely ever expected, and even when we know its nearing, it’s still just as bad. Nothing will ever make death suck less.
I am a senior in college and have experienced two deaths in my family since sophomore year. My sophomore year, it was unexpectedly my father. Just a little over a month ago, Fall semester senior year, it was my grandfather. Again, not expected. In these three and a half years, I have watched many of my friends and peers go through the same experience. And it sucks.
Not always but many college students go away for school, at least to some degree. Maybe you don’t visit home often because you’re busy or you’re just too far. Then a family member passes and you might not even remember the last time you hugged that person. If you’re as fortunate as I am, you’re close enough that you can make it home relatively quickly to be with your family and attend services. If you’re not, you might not even be able to make it home at all. And even if you do go home, you can only ever stick around for a few days until back to school you go.
Okay so yeah, every other working adult deals with the same thing right? Nope. Not as long as they get to return to their family or spouse every single night after work. We college students return to school and have to deal with all of the sadness and anger we feel by ourselves. There may be friends who can help with the process but I can say from experience, the best way to heal from a death is by being with family who are going through it too. Sure, there’s phones to call home and your college friends may know what you’re going through, but there is nothing like getting a hug from mom as tears fall down your face or holding your aunt’s hand through the services. Even if it wasn’t a family member and instead a friend of some sort, it’s all the same. It’s that comfort in being with those who are experiencing the same feelings for the same reasons.
The semester doesn’t get put on hold just because someone you knew has passed. You still have three papers to write in one week, an exam next Tuesday, and a big project due next week, not to mention your part-time job and all the extracurriculars you have on your plate. All these assignments begin to seem so minuscule, which leads you to begin to believe your GPA really doesn’t matter in the long run. Again, same for every other working adult and high school student right? No, there’s a correlation here but the situations are still different. By no means am I arguing that we college students have it more rough because that is impossible to argue in such cases, I’m just arguing that it really really sucks to have to deal with a death in college when you’re away from those you wish to be near.
This isn’t a ‘poor April’ post. I don’t want your sympathy, and neither does any other college student. And we certainly do not want any generic reactions, like ‘I am here for you no matter the distance.’ Quite frankly, that’s bullshit. When all I want is my grandmother’s hug, I can’t get that unless I drive that hour home in the middle of the night when I need it most. This is more of a revelation post. We just want all working adults in the real world (including professors and parents) to know that we are holding it all in together because we have no other choice, just as they would if roles were reversed. We want you to know that this brave face is here, not because that’s how we feel, but because we don’t have the time to feel the sadness or the strength to handle it by ourselves without our families by our sides.
But despite the age and life differences, I think it’s pretty safe to say that if there are such things as super powers, it would definitely be how people handle death. When a death does occur, many people do realize that life does go on and somehow manage to deal with all the stress and heartache on top of their crazy lives. I think that’s pretty amazing.
