To ask if you ever get over a parents death

Yes you do. Of course you still miss them and wish you had more time with them, but it's the natural order of things and you eventually get over it and carry on. I still get a heart ache when I see an older gentleman with a full head of white hair - just like my dad's. But I now think of all the good memories snd what a wonderful life my parents led.
My husband died suddenly at 51 when our children were small - that has more profoundly affected my son (less so my daughter who was 4). I often wonder how things would be different for him if he'd had his father in his life.

My dad died last week, after months of being unwell and then a week in hospital.

It's not easy, but I am taking comfort in the fact that until this recent illness he had a full and happy life and was a great dad and grandad. If you are particularly struggling with things, it's a good idea to seed some counselling or just talk to friends. Nearly all of this will go through this.

My DF died at 54 and my DM was then killed at 69 in a car accident. I was 44. This was six years ago.
I live a pretty charmed life but both those events were completely outside of my control and I live with a constant underlying feel of sadness, and unfairly resentment at PIL who rattle on in their 80's.
It never leaves you. Really.

My mum died 15 years ago, and a part of me died with her if I'm honest. I've never quite been the person I was before. Life goes on and I'm fine in general, but it did change me.

Mostly when thinking of my parents now is remembering a funny time or doing something myself that reminds me of them. Me and sibling often joke on WhatsApp what they would have said or done in certain circumstances

My mum died 12 years ago when my DC were very young (DS was 1) the time she was in hospital and immediately after her death was so hard. I felt like I was sleepwalking through, just functioning on survival mode. If I took the kids out for the day I'd get home and be bereft that I couldn't call her and tell her where we'd been, what DC were doing.
Exactly 6 months to the day she died I visited my dad (I had visited lots of times before that) and I suddenly realised that driving there, I hadn't re-lived the last journey to the hospital. On the way home one of the kids started throwing up and had norovirus. I remember realising I can cope with this, I'm managing without calling mum for reassurance or advice (or just to have a moan!😉) and it was a really pivotal moment for me.

I don't think about her every day anymore but sometimes can be caught unawares. A couple of years ago my neighbour of a similar age had her mum to stay from overseas and they had gone to school drop off. Just seeing them together doing something mundane caught me unaware and I had to rush past and hope they didn't see me because I could feel myself welling up! And seeing DD in her prom dress made me sad mum wouldn't see how she'd grown up and be really proud of her.
My dad died 3 years ago and I don't think it hit me as hard, but in a way it felt like he took the last bit of mum with him.

Mum died beginning of Jan, so only a few weeks ago really. I finally understand the wave analogy of grief in a way I hadn't really understood before. You can be reasonably ok one week and the next the deep longing for her and sadness can feel overwhelming. I think I'm only just starting to understand on a deeper level I won't see her again. She died of COPD so had been poorly for a while so it wasn't a shock, and yet it still has been.

I hope it does get easier as people say as I am also finding myself quite emotionally flat and irritable too.

I'm sorry to hear what you're going through OP. I'm in a similar situation with my DF and it's tough. You may want to research 'anticipatory grief' - it's real and can be just as painful as bereavement. I'm currently finding some comfort through reading 'the tibetan book of living and dying' and listening to podcasts about coping with grief e.g. https://open.spotify.com/episode/7CDjd4OAFJwxrxQYoGRldC?si=bfWs5mimT2aF-j1BWMH58A

I think it depends on their age and perhaps the nature of their death.

I agree. The sudden death of anyone must make you feel robbed. I had time to get used to the idea that both of my parents were going to die.

Yes the pain from loss does get less over time, the fond memories come more to the fore. I think it depends on their age and perhaps the nature of their death. The difficult times can be the first one or two Christmases without them, and fortunately the option to mark Christmas in a place my dad had never stayed in possibly helped.

The grief was short lived in our case, we had time to get used to the idea he was going to die (advanced age and cancer), we used the time left to make the best of it: talk, joke, talk, have philosophical conversations, laugh (a lot), keep talking.

Yes, that's what we did. I remember the last Christmas with my mum thinking that it would be the last Christmas we would have with her and made sure to treasure every moment. She died the following year just a week before Christmas.

It does get better I was 30 and my dad suddenly passed on Father's Day. The immense anger for ages after was awful. Life just becomes a new normal and you do smile again. Just make sure you never forget that time goes by so quickly and do things that you enjoy

The grief was short lived in our case, we had time to get used to the idea he was going to die (advanced age and cancer), we used the time left to make the best of it: talk, joke, talk, have philosophical conversations, laugh (a lot), keep talking.

When he was finally gone we had no guilt and no regrets, most had been said, we did our best, he was no longer in pain.

I never expected there was going to be such a short lived grief, of course we miss him but… we are seeing his death as just a “pause” in our communication and grief has been replaced by a huge level of gratitude for having him in our lives.

I understand however this is not the norm but we have been truly blessed by the way he prepared us for his death.

My DM died 27 years ago and it still hits me sometimes.

My mum died last year.
Still devastated.

It will be ok. My mum is in me, from the way I peg my washing out, to the way I'm holding things coming down stairs sometimes. Still really sad and mixed up at times but it's OK.

you don’t get over it, you just eventually learn to live with it. I lost my dad when I was 14 and my mum when I was 23. I miss them, but the biggest sadness was seeing my children grow up having never known their grandparents.

I don’t like the term ‘getting over’. You get over a bad ex, not the death of a beloved parent. Growing around their death I think is better. Or accepting that it is a part of your story.

My Dad died when I was 13 and I still think about him most days. I can sometimes get incredibly angry or sad, usually triggered by something happening in the here and now which brings me back to those old feelings. I had a rough 10 years or so after his death but I have a good life now, all things considered.

When you lose a parent at that age it can be massively destabilising. Basically overnight you realise anyone you love can die at any time. It changed me, for sure. Once I realised it was part of my story though it helped. Radical acceptance was what I needed to be able to heal, both of the fact of his death but also of my reactions to it.

Yes, you get on with life . It’s never the same but you get over it. I’ve lost my mum, dad, brother. Time heals . Which is what they would want .

My mum passed away when I was 26, she was only 56. It was the most horrendous sadness and I genuinely thought I would never be happy again.
However like another poster said, the grief comes in waves - less frequent as time goes on. I still have days where I'll have a little cry thinking of everything she missed in my life (getting married, having children). You don't get over it, but you do learn to live with it.

Thinking of you 💐

I wasn't especially close to my father but, yes, I would say I got over his death very quickly. He died when he was 81 and I was 48. I felt very sorry for his wife and my siblings though who were much more deeply affected.

As pp have said sometimes the before period is as difficult as the aftermath if someone has a terminal illness.

Both my parents are dead, my mum 2 1/2 years ago and my dad 31 (wow) years ago.

I never "got over" my dad's death but learned to live with it, grief definitely comes in waves so you have periods of feeling sad interspersed with being ok which makes it easier to deal with. Still processing my mums death but it has been made easier by having her for so much longer.

My father died when i was 22, my mother died when i was 44,in between,many other family members.
You do,and will,cope and adjust.
It's life,and you join the flow.

My mum died when I was 30 and am now40, so my grief hardened response to your post is, you're in your 50s, there's a natural order to life that means as an adult you eventually lose your parents, getting into your 50s having had them around for so many significant life events must surely make it somewhat easier?

My mum died leaving 5 of us 31-22, from pneumonia and a congenital heart condition that was exacerbated by the antibiotics, it was horrible and traumatic and changed us all forever. I had my first child at 34 and second at 38, my mum never got to meet them, we never got to argue over why you shouldn't put babies to sleep on their front, why we don't use talk powder anymore or why I don't beat bums for misbehaving. We never got to share any of this journey and my kids never got to meet her. That lies heavy with me. She herself was only 57.

That said, yes, you recover enough to continue with your life. We all handle the grief differently, some of us talk about it a lot, some of us shy away from it, my siblings this is. We've stayed close, we remember the good times now much more than we were able to for the first few years. It's a very difficult grief and particularly a very difficult grief to go through so young.

Now there will be those who read this who lost parents in childhood who could say, well your lucky your mum was there for your teens and your graduation, that she saw you start your career and they'd be correct and they might feel 30 years was a reasonable time to have my mum, my sister who was 22 when she lost her would almost definitely feel cheated out of the extra 8 years I got and she'd be right reall. Please don't feel I'm minimising your future loss op, but you eventually learn to be grateful for all the time you had and to enjoy your memories and all the times your mum misses will hurt but you'll cope better with time partly because you have so many memories of different life stages to call on.

My dad died 24 years ago and my mom died 21 years ago. It never stops hurting, but it gets easier to live with.