The Trauma of Death and Dying

I need to start this post with a trigger warning. In this post, I am writing out my experience, trauma, and feelings surrounding the unexpected death of a friend. The themes of this post include death and dying, and includes visuals as they are a part of my trauma and need to be a part of my healing.

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My friend, who I will refer to as Shaggy, lived alone in the woods with his amazing dog. He was a long time friend of my husband and brother in law. He was always full of love, but had his demons. He was in his 40’s, but had his own health issues related to alcohol. As much of an extrovert as he was, he loved living up in the mountains off the grid. He made a home for himself there.

Last week, my husband was asked by his brother to check on Shaggy. Shaggy had been sick over the weekend with fever, chills, and fatigue and had promised his sister that he would go to the hospital. When she didn’t hear from him in a couple days she got worried. Living an hour away, my husband and I lived the closest to Shaggy. Even with bad cell reception, it was not like Shaggy to ignore everyone for that stretch of time. So, my husband left work early and I did not hesitate to go with him.

Knowing his symptoms beforehand, I wanted to take precautions in case Shaggy had covid. We packed our respirators because we couldn’t find N95s that hadn’t already been used a million times. I packed warm clothes and decided to take our dog with us in case we were gone for a long time. I don’t know if it was an intuitive feeling or if it was just myself thinking the worst, but I grabbed the ambu bag my husband bought last year when he was worried about my own breathing issues. As we drove up, I asked my husband as calmly as I could what Shaggy’s address was, thinking we may need it if we needed to call for help. My husband didn’t know. As we would later learn, he doesn’t have one.

As we pulled in the driveway, we saw both of his cars parked by the house. It was really quiet. While my husband walked up to the cabin, I heard Shaggy’s dog come up from down the hill, barking. I finally got out of the truck and walked closer. My husband knocked on the slider door with no answer. He walked down the cabin to the back door, closer to Shaggy’s bedroom. I could see my husband becoming visibly more stressed as he said, “Oh no.” I was too afraid to walk down and see what he was seeing, so I just kept asking, “What?” “what?” “what is it?” as I stood by the slider door. My husband responded with, “It’s not good. He’s in the bathroom. He’s not moving.” I said, “Are we going inside?!” almost as if I was waiting for permission, but I saw that the slider door was slightly open. I knew it wasn’t locked. Because my husband looked so stressed and I didn’t know what he was seeing, I opened the door and went inside. I thought if there was a a chance we could help, we needed to go in. His cabin was really warm and I stopped in the living room, calling Shaggy’s name. I took my jacket off, thinking that it might be in the way if we needed to administer medical help to Shaggy. Plus, it was very warm inside. “It’s us,” I said, and I noticed that my husband had come in behind me.

I wanted to cross the living room and look into the bathroom, but it was physically hard for me to go any further into the house. I couldn’t make myself move. It was a combination of not knowing what I was going to see, and not wanting to embarrass Shaggy if he had just passed out on the toilet. Would he want me to be the person he woke up to? Would he be mad? But I was also scared. I looked back at my husband and I felt like my eyes were pleading with him to look first. And he did. I don’t remember what he said. I don’t know what words came out of his mouth. I just remember the look on his face when he saw Shaggy, and then he came back down the hall. I don’t remember walking to the bathroom, but I did. I don’t know how long I looked, but I looked long enough to have the vision of him stay in my head. I knew he was dead in the quick moment it took to look. I knew from how dark his feet and lower legs were that blood had pooled in them. I knew from the blank stare in his eyes. The spark was gone. The life was gone. The look on his face reminded me of scenes in movies when someone has drowned. Haunting, but maybe peaceful. He looked skinny, sitting on the toilet, leaning slightly to the right. He looked like Shaggy, but Shaggy wasn’t there.

I don’t remember what I said. I don’t remember what the sounds were that were coming out of my throat. They were noises I did not recognize. I remember hearing my husband say, “Come on, come on,” while leading me out of the cabin. “We have to go. There’s no cell service we need to drive to call 911.” I remember telling my husband we needed to get the dog. But my husband said we would come back for him. I don’t know how I moved from the hallway in the cabin and back into the truck.

I remember more clearly when 911 finally picked up the call and we were able to ask for help. Even though we were fairly certain Shaggy had passed, neither of us were able to say for sure. We just said, “I think he’s dead,” and when they asked if we thought he was beyond help, we said, “Yes.” Because Shaggy had no street address and lived off a little dirt road, we waited for help off the freeway and led them back to Shaggy’s house. The paramedics confirmed that Shaggy had died, and that there was nothing anyone could do. They also estimated that he had been dead for maybe 10-18 hours. We waited longer for the sheriff to arrive and give our information before we finally loaded Shaggy’s dog into the car and headed home in silence.

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I have a lot of emotions going on, and it’s hard to keep them all straight. All of these emotions are so complex and have influences from so many different stages and areas of my life. I can see where my old thinking habits creep in, but I can also see my growth from the past few years. I hold myself in compassion as I’m unraveling all these thoughts and feelings.

Sadness. I’m sad that Shaggy is gone. Im sad that our camping trips and four wheel drive trips will never be the same. I’m sad to lose laughter from his humor. I’m sad that he was alone. I think about his emotional state while he was dying and hope that he wasn’t scared. I hope that he was at peace. I hope that he felt sleepy and just went to sleep. I wonder if he knew what was happening. I’m sad that his dog was outside, for however long. I’m sad that his dog wasn’t able to be with him in those moments. I wonder how much his dog could understand. He had been shut outside of the cabin. When the paramedics got there and I stood with the dog down the front steps, he just kept sniffing into the house. And then he didn’t want to leave.

Guilt. I feel guilty that I went inside the cabin. I wonder if my husband would have gone in if I hadn’t opened the door. I feel guilty that I couldn’t bring myself to go past the living room. I feel guilty that my husband was the one to go first. I feel guilty that I didn’t check him more thoroughly “just in case”, even though I know that he was beyond help. I feel guilty wondering if I’m spending too much time feeling sorry for myself rather than feeling sad that my friend is gone. I feel guilty that I want validation, too, the way people say they’re sorry for my husband finding Shaggy. I was there. It’s hard for me too. But I know it’s harder on my husband, and his pain and his validation does not subtract from mine.

Feelings of weakness or inadequacy. As a nurse, I felt like I should have been more prepared for a situation like this. I’ve been with patients as they die. I’ve pronounced patients dead. I felt weak for not being able to walk past the living room. I felt weak for not checking Shaggy more thoroughly to make sure there was nothing we could do before leaving to call 911, even though I was sure. I feel weak for second guessing myself.

Thankful. I feel thankful that his demons are gone. And that he is finally with his mom. I know he wanted to be with her. I’m also thankful that My husband and I went together. I can’t imagine how much more difficult that would have been for him if he had gone alone. I’m thankful that after all these years we have established a crisis pattern, where we instinctively know when the other needs us to be the strong one. We can take turns breaking down until we can both break down together. I’m thankful we can talk about our experience together.

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I don’t know why things happen sometimes, or if there’s even a reason. I hope that Shaggy has found peace. I hope that he and my Thor are taking care of each other wherever they are. I hope his family and friends find peace. I love you, buddy. We miss you.