Weird But True - further into my reasons for depression

I had stated in my previous post that things were a little weirder in my family, particularly on my Mothers side.

My grandparents had three children.  Don, Diane and Marilyn (My mum).  Each of these children got married and had two children of their own.  Don had Angela and Sandra; Diane had Jane and Martin; Marilyn had Michael and myself.

Sandra was born with cerebral palsy and was not expected to live much longer than her teens.  Apart from that everything was pretty straight forward in my generation, at a glance anyway.  My brother Michael and my cousin Martin were born only a couple of days apart in the same hospital.  Martin grew into a strong, strapping guy who played rugby and rowed for his school.  He was healthy like an ox.  But just before he was to turn 18 Martin got hit bad with an illness.  The Doctors flew him from Tasmania to Adelaide when they realised Martin had a hole in his heart and his heart was enlarged!  No one could really believe what was happening.  This strapping kid was very unwell.

They treated Martin and hoped that he would be able to make it home for his eighteenth.  It was never to happen though as Martin made it through all the surgeries he was required to undertake and then was killed by a heart attack caused by a Golden Staphylococcus infection.  The family were literally stunned at this.  It is completely overwhelming and unthinkable that this happened to him.  Something completely out of the blue.

Life continued for us and in time the pain eased and I would think fondly of the times that I had with Martin.  But then another tragedy lurched into being.  My cousin Sandra (Sandy) had survived well past her teens and she was in her thirties.  She was such a funny spirit.  Wild and spirited with a mischievous humour much like her father she was a joy to be around.  She was at home by herself when an electrical fault in her wheelchair caused a fire.  I cannot bear to think of what she went through and I hoped that I would never learn what it would be like to lose someone in such a circumstance.

But of course you may have read my last blog and know that I did.  My brother killed by a one in a million circumstance.  I llok at our family history.  Three children of one generation; each had two children of their own; each lost one child to circumstances so unlikely as to be considered one in a million events.

I look at that and wonder two things.  Firstly, is our family cursed?  Secondly, is it proof of a greater pattern to things?

I cannot say for sure but I can tell you one thing.  It sucks.  I hate even that I have to think like this, or that my mind is conditioned at looking at things this way.  I know there is greater pain and suffering of others out in the world but this is so personal to me and it is part of the complicated relationship of my depression.  I do feel that without this repeated pattern of loss I may have healed from the loss of my brother but with the added losses I feel like I was set up to fall in this hole.

Thanks for reading.