That's deep, man.

Lost my mom and brother in 21'. Now most often their memory brings a smile to my face but even now sometimes those memories are hard.

Good catch.

To the OP. You’re not breaking down, the negative is just breaking out. Let it, it’s good for you.
I wish you well.

Osky

I stayed a stoic rock for 4 years after my son was killed becuse if I showed emotion my wife seemed to feed on it and really break down. Someone had to be able to take care of things and function. We still had my daughter 5 at the time after all.

Threw myself into working out after I got off the walker. It keep.me alive and distracted.

BUT after 4 years well something broke and I had a lot of self detrimental behavior for about 8 to 12 months and fortunately got my head out of my rear end.

Be careful holding it all in to long.

Deaths don't hit me quite the same any more after having my 16 month old son killed. Im sure it will be hard if its my mom, wife or kids and one cousin but still woth hit me hard like the death of my grandparents did before my son was killed. Just something is now permanently broken on that front.

That's a line from Gladiator.

1 Peter 5:7

Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.

Matthew 11:28-30

28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

God gives us burdens to bear. Burdens given by God are something that are not too heavy, like raising children, loving a spouse, most of the time we even enjoy these burdens. With God's strength, we can shoulder and unshoulder them. Even the death of friends and family. Their is a time to mourn and cry, but there is also a time to rise up from mourning, let joy come again. We know we will see our loved ones again, we have hope, something to look forward to. We have a degree of control over burdens.

Cares, however, are things we have no control over: a loved on passing away, unexpected bills, burdens brought by sinful living. Mourning too long passes from being a burden that you can carry with God's help, to being overburdened with a care.

Abraham, after his wife Sarah died, cried... he didn't cry when God said to leave his family, when His nephew lot was stolen, when he was commanded to sacrifice his son Isaac, when twice his wife was taken from him by kings... he only cried once, when his wife died. He loved her, and he mourned, and so he should have.

Genesis 23:1-6

And Sarah was an hundred and seven and twenty years old: these were the years of the life of Sarah. And Sarah died in Kirjath-arba; the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan: and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her. And Abraham stood up from before his dead, and spake unto the sons of Heth, saying, I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a buryingplace with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.

The important thing we learn from Abraham is, after a time of mourning, he stood up. If he had never stood up from mourning, he wouldn't have taken care of the burial details for his wife, he wouldn't have had a part in seeing his son get married to a fine lady, he wouldn't have gotten married again and had more children who started other nations. God still had a purpose for him after his wife passed, but he wouldn't have been able to fulfill that purpose if he never stood up from mourning.

Praying for you, I hope these Scriptures help

We are loosing a lot of loved ones to death as well, and we are in a bush village in Alaska, and cannot afford for our whole family to fly down to Florida for funerals. My wife was the only who flew down for her mother's funeral, and I was not able to go to my first Pastor's funeral, the man who led me to the Lord when I was a teenager, and trained me in the ministry. I mourned for a time, even complained a little to the Lord about not being able to go to the funerals of two of the most important people in my life, but eventually I saw that it had passed from being a burden I could bear, to being a care I had no control over, and was overburdening me, so I cast it upon the Lord, and he helped me stand and go on with life. I've a lot left to live for and rejoice over: my wife and children, surviving extended family, my congregation I pastor, people with addictions and trouble with sin in their lives. Not to mention marten and wolverine trapping, enjoying God's creation.

When you feel like crying, go ahead and cry. If you bottle it up, it will just fester and make you feel worse.
My wife gets mad at me when I am fixing something in the shop that isn't going my way and I start cussing and throwing tools, startling young children 4 houses over.
I explain to her that if I don't let that venom out, I am afraid that I may end up exploding and aim for one of those kids 4 houses over with one of those wrenches.
I deal with death of someone particularly close to me by saying, "I know that they are dead, but they are not gone." I then point to my chest where my heart is is and say, "They are right here." That's where I carry them and I find myself becoming more like them in the ways in which I admired them.

I prefer to spit in it's eye.

The time of passing for many of my friends young and old this last few weeks. We morn but not as the unsaved.
.

My old man died suddenly over 20 years ago. you mentioned gardening. he always had a garden we ate out of. he died right when I was getting married and having kid #1 in my 20's. that first spring I had to start gardening if I wanted anything garden related. I never had him show me anything other than helping him and had to figure it all out. so I set out to figure out tomato plants in a way that is hard to explain. our family farm and garden wasn't going to die with him. I'm the oldest. Anyway working in the garden is like a good memory / tribute that makes me feel good when I am doing it. Cant dwell on the bad things that happened. The death or our fights over the years. Other advice I can give is that if you hold everything in, its still going to come out. Its just a matter of when. It boils over at weird times if you try to hold it in. Do it now and get it over with or you will be crying like woman watching commercials for the next 20 years. Someone said something about self destruction. Its probably good to get it all out early and not to hold it in over time so things like that don't happen. Eventually you'll see something and it'll be a good memory about that something and not a bad memory about the death / loss. I couldn't listen to music for years but that's better now. Its an injury to you. Best to take care of it now and let it heal properly, or its going to fester. Good luck to you and others on here, I can't imagine some of this loss. Writing that reminds me, it can always be worse. Its hard to understand at first but once you go through something traumatic that keeps gradually getting worse over time as details emerge you soon realize that as bad as yesterday seemed like it was it could always be worse and that maybe we should have been more grateful for yesterday as bad as it seemed then. i.e. take your sick kid to the hospital as bad as it seems, there are far worse sicknesses in the hospital when you are there, or even someone grieving their loss. As bad as anything seems, It can always have been worse. It got bad, it kept getting worse, but eventually it all stopped and he was just gone. Keep your head up. Good luck everyone.

p.s. My grandma lived so long that nobody was at her funeral. She outlived everyone that knew her in a community she was heavily involved in. Anyone still alive wasn't healthy enough to make the funeral, immediate family not excluded. Its sad and lonely when you live a long time too. Godspeed.

Going through it right now with a my good fishing hunting buddy. He is in the hospital waiting for a room at a hospice hospital. Dementia or Alzheimer is also involved. He is barely alive as far as we can see. But he does recognize us and do get some logical communication form him.....SAD......jk