My girlfriend and I went to do a welfare check on a friend and found her dead on the couch

ABA180 · May 26, 2025 at 3:19 PM

PennSilverTaco[OP] said: ↑

@ABA180
@ColoradoTJ
@shakerhood
@steelcity2
@TnShooter

I had cried a bit back in October when my parents told me that the cancer had spread to Pop-pop's liver, I had cried at Pop-pop's bedside the last time I'd seen him alive, and I cried when my dad told me that he had passed away. However, I kept my composure until very end of the funeral service...

My Aunt Jenn started crying at one point, I forget whether it was during one of the viewings on Thursday or on Friday morning before we loaded his casket into the hearse, and I just embraced her and let sob it out.

My cousins Lanae and Sara, at the time aged 18 and 15 respectively (the same ones I went to Body Worlds with back in 2006), both started crying shortly before we left the funeral home on Friday; I have always towered over my cousins, and the only thing I could think to do was grab both of them in this big bear hug and squeeze them. They cried into my shoulders, but I managed to keep my composure.

I was not originally supposed to be a pallbearer, but one of the guys originally supposed to be a pallbearer had something come up; I overheard Nana J talking about this with another family friend. In typical Aspie fashion, I interrupted the conversation and blurted out "I'll be a pallbearer!" if I remember correctly.

Nana J had not originally wanted any family to pallbearers, but my dad and a few other relatives loved the idea and she relented; I helped load Pop-pop's casket into the hearse and unload it at the cemetery. I held it together for the service at the cemetery, but at the very end they start playing taps and I lost it. My mom saw that I was crying, and also started crying because she hated seeing me in pain. At point I was leaning against my parents' minivan, head on the window, just bawling.

I never had a bad relationship with Pop-pop, ever. However, because my dad was in the Navy, for all but 9 of the first nearly 19 years of my life we didn't live close enough to visit him and Nana J regularly. I was born in California in 1989. We lived in Pennsylvania, about an hour from Pop-pop, from 1990 to 1996. We moved back to California in 1996 and lived there until 1998, Virginia Beach from 1998 to 2000, Washington state from 2000 to 2002, and Northern Virginia from 2002 to 2005. We finally moved back to Pennsylvania in 2005 and were an hour from Pop-pop once again, but he was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2006 and died before the end of 2007. I graduated high school five months before he died, and didn't get my driver's license until three and a half years after he died. There were two memorial runs in his honor, in 2008 and 2009 respectively on the anniversary of his death, in which the proceeds were donated to cancer research. My parents and I went to both of these; I still close with Nana J and Aunt Tracey, and Nana J had the honor of being my first grandparent to meet Amanda. Now, my family has basically accepted Amanda as one of their own and Amanda has been to at least three family gatherings at Nana J's house.

I am a bit embarrassed to say that in the nearly 18 years since Pop-pop passed, I have not visited his resting place once (he was interred in a mausoleum, with a space for Nana J when her time comes). Granted, the cemetery is more than an hour from my house and not exactly in an area that I would want to visit otherwise, but I still feel kind of bad. My maternal grandparents are both buried at a church cemetery in Connecticut, and while I drove through Connecticut on my way up to Massachusetts in 2022, I haven't been to my grandparents' resting place since the funeral back in 2015.

Should I feel bad about this?!?! It's not exactly easy to just hop in my truck and drive up to Connecticut, but I am considering driving to visit Pop-pop in New Brunswick in the near future...
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Not a bit. Cupcake's mom passed in 2005 and she's been once, at her dad's burial. It's 20 minutes from home and right up the street from the family house. She says she doesn't think of her there, she thinks of her when she hears a song..goes to a restaurant they liked to go to..and so on.

PennSilverTaco[OP] said: ↑

Unfortunately, it is now illegal to dump ashes just anywhere, and where it is legal to do so I believe you have to get a permit...
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Oops don't tell anyone I might have done this at an arcade..

TnShooter said: ↑

I don't know buddy.
We all deal with things differently.

One of my best friends, who is now dead, told me something I will always remember.

He said,

"People are going to come and go in your life.
Some will be alive when they leave. Other will be dead.
But you have to hold your head up, and go on with your life.
You can't live in the life of someone that's gone."

He died in 2017.
Sure I miss they guy.
But he's gone......Just like he said.

And I moved on. Just like he'd want me to......
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Similar..my high school friend Brian once we hit our 40s occasionally would mention we will see more funerals than weddings at this stage. He left me early 2021..damn him

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My girlfriend and I went to do a welfare check on a friend and found her dead on the couch

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My girlfriend and I went to do a welfare check on a friend and found her dead on the couch

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