Coping with stress as a family

This past week I have been thinking a lot about some of the different tragedies that families have to face. Some include financial struggles, loss of a loved one such as a grandparent or a child, moving to a new place, the birth of a child and so on. All of these things can be both a blessing and a struggle for a family unit. It was interesting to be learning about the different crises that families face because one of the most challenging one for people to overcome is the death of a child because those tend to be the most unexpected. I have been thinking about that a lot this past week and how I would feel if I lost a child. I know that it would be difficult to comprehend because as humans we expect that our parents and grandparents will die before we will, but that is not always the case.

Yesterday would have marked the 22nd birthday of one of my closest friends named Rachel. She passed away unexpectedly in a car accident that took her life away. I have been thinking a lot about how here family must have felt and still feels to this day even though it has been almost four years since she passed away. Thinking about all of the opportunities that she wasn't able to experience must be devastating for her parents to think about knowing this accident could have been prevented if they didn't allow her to go with her friends on that road trip. Looking at these types of situations there are always the what if's as there are to everything. There will always be i'm sure as in most tragedies be the thoughts in our minds "what would have happened if we did such and such instead". Something that I am realizing that no matter how much we try to see what "could have happened" in the end God's will, will be done. Life doesn't go as planned and in this moments of stress is when we can not only draw closer to our families, but also to our Savior Jesus Christ.

I was thinking also about that same year when my best friend passed away a few months previously my grandma Carter passed away very unexpectedly in a car accident as well. I remember when it happened and looking at my dad who look so sad although he never would admit to it. His eyes seemed heavy as I could see that he was realizing that he no longer had either of his parents alive anymore. The day before he was asked to give my grandma a blessing but he wasn't feeling well, so my uncle went and had someone else join him to give grandma the blessing. The next day when she was driving to church she passed out as she was driving and hit the light pole over in front of our church building. It was kind of funny because as someone was saying the closing prayer in sacrament meeting and said amen all of the lights in the building went out. Later we came to find out why the lights went out and that it was caused by grandma. I remember going to the hospital after she died and looking at her with a tube stuck down her throat. That wasn't the grandma Carter that I remembered. It wasn't the funny, witty and smart grandma that I knew and it made me so sad to see her in that condition. Something that I will be forever grateful for was I believe the next day or so my dad took me out to dinner personally and we talked about the death of my grandma and it gave me comfort that it was okay to feel sad and that I wasn't alone. Although we all may face crises in our life we have the choice to determine whether these crises will bring us together closer as families or if they will create distance between the families.