Sudden deaths are some of the most difficult deaths to process. In this scene from 'This is us' we see Jack Pearson's wife talking with the doctor about her husband's death. It seemed incomprehensible that he would die when Jack merely ran in to rescue her daughter's cat from the house fire.

My eye has wasted away with grief;
It has become old because of all my adversaries. Psalm 6:7

This has been a difficult day in Minneapolis and certainly for the city of Brooklyn Center. Last night, there was an officer-involved shooting of a 20-year male who was pulled over for what should have been a routine traffic stop.  When it was all done we discovered that this young man died when the Brooklyn Center police officer thought she was using her taser instead of her gun.  One bullet was all it took to take the life of this young man. 

Sudden deaths of young people are often some of the most difficult deaths to process by most people. When such a death occurs, most people are left stunned, bewildered, and in shock that something like this could have happened to their loved one.  

In this scene in This is us Jack Pearson is laying in the next room deceased when the smoke he inhaled caused his heart to go into cardiac arrest. From his wife's impression, he should never have died because he was brought to the hospital with burns when he ran into the families burning house to rescue his daughter's cat.

In most family's timelines, we notice how different their lives were before the loss of their loved one and how different their lives were after the loss.  Each member will grieve differently. Wives will grieve differently from their husbands while siblings grieve differently from each other. 

George Floyd's brother got up on the stand and shared how his brother ache for a long time when he learned of the news of his mom's death.   In all of us, our moms hold a special place in our lives. They are often the glue that keeps families together.   It makes sense that when we lose a loved one all of us come to a crossroads in life. We can choose between two options of grief recovery: (1) we can work through our pain by processing all of the emotions that we feel from our loss while finding trusted listeners to confide to regarding this pain, or  (2) we can venture down the road of excessive drinking and opioid abuse because deep down we see it as helping us bury our pain.   

I'm not a huge believer in option 2 because I have seen many people who choose option 1 successfully recover from their loss, and while those who choose 2 pursue a path of anger, drug and alcohol addiction, and early death.

You may not feel normal like you did before your loss, but I believe if you're willing to process all of the emotions of your loss you will eventually develop a new normal that will one day be used by God to help others recover from a loss. 

If you are hurting and the pain seems to be too much for you, I encourage you to invest in a 13-week grief share group where you will learn how to go through the pain of your loss, not around it.  https://griefshare.org