Half full or half empty: 03 (Dealing with news of a death)

I've just heard about the deaths of two people I didn't know personally but known to the bringer of the news.

    Both were not young, but a loss is a loss, whatever the age of the departed.

    My consolation to that person was:  "It's always hard on the survivor, but I always try and tell myself that it's kinder on the deceased, as s/he is no longer suffering.  This makes it easier to accept."

    I've used this half full or half empty perspective on two occasions to help me through a mega depression.

    One was the unexpected death of a Taiwanese friend from a traffic accident.  He had been a (platonic) soulmate, and I'd just spent a month in the summer with him in Taiwan.

    I asked British Monomarks (the telex agency where I was working part-time to support myself through my first degree) to give me all the spare hours they could find.  This way, I'd come home totally whacked, down a big glass of brandy and fall asleep, getting up the next day to another full shift.  Day in, day out.

    When there were no more hours to be had at Monomarks, I'd sit on the floor against the radiator in the basement flat, and grieve.  My West Hampstead flat was a short distance from Hampstead Heath, where I could go and take a long walk, but I didn't want to do anything, I just wanted to sink in my depressed state.

    One day, a thought suddenly struck me:  the person who had died wasn't suffering anymore, so I was not feeling sad for him but for myself.  I had lost a good friend, so I was feeling sad for my loss.  I was therefore being selfish.  That thought brought me out of my debilitating depression.

(London, 1979)