{"id":210,"date":"2017-04-27T18:55:36","date_gmt":"2017-04-27T18:55:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/?p=210"},"modified":"2018-08-15T23:47:07","modified_gmt":"2018-08-15T23:47:07","slug":"losing-a-loved-one-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/2017\/04\/27\/losing-a-loved-one-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Losing a Loved One"},"content":{"rendered":"

Haneesha Paruchuri,<\/strong> ’19
\nCollege of Arts and Sciences<\/em><\/p>\n

I woke up early one summer morning with a sense of unrest. Only a few hours previously, we had celebrated my friend\u2019s twentieth birthday; yet, for some inexplicable reason, I felt lonely with a sense of longing for home. Having only been home for three weeks this summer, I dismissed my emotions for homesickness and got ready. <\/span><\/p>\n

On the walk to Stevenson, I called her, my best friend from Chicago, but I was left with the sound of her voice on the answering machine. It wasn\u2019t until a couple hours later that I would find that that would be the last time I would hear her voice. On the night of June 30<\/span>th<\/span>, my best friend had committed suicide. It was the 21<\/span>st<\/span> of July, three weeks after the incident.<\/span><\/p>\n

My entire being went numb while my brain searched for a logical explanation. \u201cI had literally talked to her three weeks ago.\u201d <\/span>Last phone call: June 29<\/span><\/i>th<\/span><\/i>. <\/span><\/i>\u201cShe must have run away from home.\u201d <\/span>The police had located her body. <\/span><\/i>\u201cThere must be a mistake.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I was stunned \u2013 how could this happen? I felt angry \u2013 how did they let me live three weeks in oblivion? I felt guilty \u2013 how was I unable to prevent this from happening?<\/span><\/p>\n

\"I
I woke up early one summer morning with a sense of unrest. Only a few hours previously, we had celebrated my friend\u2019s twentieth birthday; yet, for some inexplicable reason, I felt lonely with a sense of longing for home. Having only been home for three weeks this summer, I dismissed my emotions for homesickness and got ready.
On the walk to Stevenson, I called her, my best friend from Chicago, but I was left with the sound of her voice on the answering machine. It wasn\u2019t until a couple hours later that I would find that that would be the last time I would hear her voice. On the night of June 30th, my best friend had committed suicide. It was the 21st of July, three weeks after the incident.
My entire being went numb while my brain searched for a logical explanation. \u201cI had literally talked to her three weeks ago.\u201d Last phone call: June 29th. \u201cShe must have run away from home.\u201d The police had located her body. \u201cThere must be a mistake.\u201d
I was stunned \u2013 how could this happen? I felt angry \u2013 how did they let me live three weeks in oblivion? I felt guilty \u2013 how was I unable to prevent this from happening? I was exhausted \u2013 how can I mentally process all this when it just didn\u2019t feel real? But most of all, I felt desperate \u2013 how can I turn back the clock?
I spent the last three weeks of summer break with my thoughts. I felt torn between knowing she was gone but feeling like it was all a mistake. In my mind, she is living happily on a farm in Lithuania \u2013 her happy place. But maybe I\u2019m just na\u00efve.
My parents were constantly worried about me, giving me passes, every time I did something crazy. My friends always had a sense of pity in their voices, wanting to help, but not knowing how. I was constantly assuring them that I was doing okay. They couldn\u2019t understand that like everything, I wanted to handle this myself.
This is when I admit that I am na\u00efve. I don\u2019t understand how I thought that I could do this without help. Every time I thought I was doing okay, the smallest things would remind me of her, engulfing me back into despair. It became so hard to focus on myself. I slowly became someone I couldn\u2019t recognize.
But finally, time had caught up to me, and I don\u2019t know if it was the stress of the semester or the pressure from holding it in for so long, but I began talking about it with my friends. The more people I told, the easier it got to express myself and my feelings more openly. And yes, the same worry and pity that I tried so hard to avoid were back, but somehow they didn\u2019t bother me as much anymore. I began to embrace these feelings, better understanding the support rather than the judgement behind them.
Being vulnerable is never easy, especially for me, someone who\u2019s always been so independent my entire life. But sometimes it can lead to beautiful things. My vulnerability has helped me understand myself better, build stronger relationships, and overall, experience life from a new, happier perspective.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I was exhausted \u2013 how can I mentally process all this when it just didn\u2019t feel real? But most of all, I felt desperate \u2013 how can I turn back the clock? <\/span><\/p>\n

I spent the last three weeks of summer break with my thoughts. I felt torn between knowing she was gone but feeling like it was all a mistake. In my mind, she is living happily on a farm in Lithuania \u2013 her happy place. But maybe I\u2019m just na\u00efve.<\/span><\/p>\n

My parents were constantly worried about me, giving me passes, every time I did something crazy. My friends always had a sense of pity in their voices, wanting to help, but not knowing how. I was constantly assuring them that I was doing okay. They couldn\u2019t understand that like everything, I wanted to handle this myself. <\/span><\/p>\n

This is when I admit that I am na\u00efve. I don\u2019t understand how I thought that I could do this without help. Every time I thought I was doing okay, the smallest things would remind me of her, engulfing me back into despair. It became so hard to focus on myself. I slowly became someone I couldn\u2019t recognize.<\/span><\/p>\n

But finally, time had caught up to me, and I don\u2019t know if it was the stress of the semester or the pressure from holding it in for so long, but I began talking about it with my friends. The more people I told, the easier it got to express myself and my feelings more openly. And yes, the same worry and pity that I tried so hard to avoid were back, but somehow they didn\u2019t bother me as much anymore. I began to embrace these feelings, better understanding the support rather than the judgement behind them.
\n<\/span>
\nBeing vulnerable is never easy, especially for me, someone who\u2019s always been so independent my entire life. But sometimes it can lead to beautiful things. My vulnerability has helped me understand myself better, build stronger relationships, and overall, experience life from a new, happier perspective.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Haneesha Paruchuri, ’19 College of Arts and Sciences I woke up early one summer morning with a sense of unrest. Only a few hours previously, we had celebrated my friend\u2019s twentieth birthday; yet, for some inexplicable reason, I felt lonely with a sense of longing for home. Having only been home for three weeks this…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6650,"featured_media":211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,22],"tags":[37,32,27],"class_list":["post-210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-personal-wellbeing","tag-college-of-arts-and-sciences","tag-mvov17","tag-vu2021"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6650"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210\/revisions\/212"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}