Has anyone in your family died and made you change your attitude on things?

Ouch, that had some teeth in it. I learned that lesson the hard way when I was 12. You take absolutely nothing for granted, cherish your loved ones, cut your loved ones some slack, and I really learned the meaning of love.

Not in my family that I can recall, but the early deaths of several close friends motivated me to start thinking seriously about carpe diem-ing.

My beloved grandmother who had helped raise me (when my mom was on drugs and drank heavily) died when I was 24 years old. It broke my heart because she was my protector and my greatest fan. And after awhile, I kind of kept to myself a little more and became a more private person.

When my mom died, and shortly after my best friend from childhood, I became less fundamentalist about my faith. I became more open and way less judgmental. It’s funny that my mom was way more liberal than me. She advocated for Gay marriage before I did. She was just a loving accepting spirit and in the process of accompanying her on her final legs of this life’s journey I realized I wanted to be more like her.

Yes it has changed me, it has made me feel lost and unsafe. More than ever before.

I have had a lot of loss in my life. One was the love of my life and my perfect match. I have changed now because I have lost hope. Hope in the life I knew I wanted and thought I was going to have, now I’m forced to have different then I wanted.

BTW, Welcome to fluther :) Great Question.

My father died, and in the middle of my grief, I discovered he had been cheating on my mother, and I decided to keep this a secret from her. I never realized how angry you can be with someone who is dead. Who is this person? Why didn’t you tell me? I could have handled it. I just wanted to know my father, and now I realize I never did, although I thought I did, and I never will.

It makes me sick. It makes me wonder if I even know myself. Does this have anything to do with my own relationship problems?

You never know what you will learn when someone dies. Maybe it will turn your world upside down. The world will turn out to be quite different from what you thought it was.

This all happened more than a decade ago, and it still bothers me. I know it doesn’t matter. I know I’ll never know what I want to know, but somehow it seems to live on inside me no matter how badly I want to leave it behind.

Yes I used to think that loving someone meant you can’t live without them.