Quarter 3: Week 3, Post B

How is she doing this?

That could pretty much sum up my feelings as I was reading these past few chapters. Nikki's descriptions of her mother's murder and what she looked like when she found her dead were horrifying. I can't imagine what I would do if it were me in a situation like that. To be honest, I don't know if I would be strong enough to survive something like that. However, I wouldn't know, because I have never experienced death first hand.

I've only been to two funerals in my life-time, and neither of them were for people I was very close to. I was sad, sure, but it was nothing like the kind of grief one must experience when dealing with the death, or in this case murder, of a parent or even a close friend. I do know people, some even my own age or younger, who have had to deal with that kind of situation, and I honestly don't know how they do it. But the closest I've come to knowing death is through my mother. When she was 26, her younger brother died in a plane crash. He was a marine, and he was test-flying a plane over the Atlantic when another plane malfunctioned and crashed into his. She doesn't talk about it too much, but I know how much pain it caused her, how much pain it caused her own family. I know that it was the hardest time of her life. I know that my grandma still barely gets through Thanksgiving grace without breaking down.

It's terribly sad. And yet, it's still so very far removed from me and my life. I'm not the one who misses him or can still occasionally hear his voice--that's my mom. So, really, I've never had any first-hand experience with death. I know I will, some time in the very distant future hopefully, but as of yet it's hard to relate to Nikki's feelings. Beyond knowing that she's sad, I have no idea what she's feeling in this situation. I have no idea the kind of horror she has gone through. And that, I guess, is what makes me want to say "How is she doing this??"