Page 2 | When your beloved parent is about to pass away and you know that you're about to be sad forever.

QueenJacinda · 2023-01-27T20:56:19+00:00

What on earth can make you feel better? 😢

Cherryblossoms85 · 27/01/2023 23:00

Getting to say goodbye will seem like a very precious gift for you in future. Stay if you can, be with them in the last moments. I wasn't and I find it very hard even six years later. Never in my entire life did I tell my dad I loved him, and I want that more than anything.

jellymaker · 27/01/2023 23:02

I'm standing with you. My mum is too going through palliative care for cancer. She is suffering so much.Its horrible wanting that to end but not wanting her to go.

RampantIvy · 27/01/2023 23:04

ShakespearesBlister · 27/01/2023 20:59

Nothing my love, but I promise you won't be sad forever. One day you will smile fondly again and still feel that love you felt before. I'm so sorry xx

This is so true for me.

The sadness becomes replaced by nostalgia.

SlaveToTheVibe · 27/01/2023 23:10

I’m here too OP.
I was in shock for the first couple of weeks then very tired for a few weeks and now I’m rebalancing

writing a grief journal is helping me as is crying when I need and getting outside every day - basically I’m trying to look after myself especially as I drank daily over the last six months due to the sheer stress.

i adored my mum and am sad but not all the time and not crying daily either. When they’re suffering the relief is intense. ❤️

ChinnyTroubles · 27/01/2023 23:37

My darling dad died 5 months ago. I think I cope by not really believing he has gone. It is too much to comprehend.

You will smile again @QueenJacinda , you will be happy. Funny memories come back at the oddest of times. My dad had dementia and lost a lot of memories but was funny and cheeky until the end. It helps us to remember them.

Thinking of you at such a difficult time 😘

(btw does your username have a meaning?)

Standbyguest · 27/01/2023 23:44

I'm a few months in. For me, there is now a huge aching hole in my heart and in my gut. It's a physical pain/emptiness. But I only feel it when I actively think about what's happened and that I've lost someone precious. But a lot of the time, when I'm distracted, I don't think about it/feel it.

When I was in your stage, it was always there, as well as the anxiety and stress of what was happening. These bits are the hardest. It does get a tiny bit easier, day by day.

Talapia · 27/01/2023 23:50

I'm so sorry.

It does get easier over time. First anniversaries of everything are very difficult.

I had a little of my mum's ashes put into a ring. I know it's not for everyone , but for me, she's always with me.

longcoffeebreak · 28/01/2023 00:01

jellymaker · 27/01/2023 23:02

I'm standing with you. My mum is too going through palliative care for cancer. She is suffering so much.Its horrible wanting that to end but not wanting her to go.

I'm in exactly the same position with my mum ❤️

EVHead · 28/01/2023 00:10

It’s awful. It’s supposed to be. It shows how much you love them, that it hurts so much to lose them.

Take pride in showing up for them. In showing up for your close family. Dealing with the practicalities, the form-filling and the conversations with strangers that need to happen before you can finally say goodbye.

Take pride in honouring what they wanted at the end. Think of how proud of you they’d be.

Carry them with you every day. See things they could never see and imagine what they would have thought.

Keep going and be as happy as you can. Live the best life you can. It’s what they wanted for you. 🥰

katieak · 28/01/2023 00:17

You won't feel better for a while. You will just feel the sadness and that's ok. But in time the sadness becomes less constant and just a part of the day. I'm still at the stage of sadness every day. It's not so consuming, but it is there.

Now I take comfort from the strength my dad gave me and the things he taught me and the bits of his personality I have started to see more of in mine. I feel lucky when he comes to me in my dreams every now and then.

Not being able to see and touch and speak to him I am sure will hurt forever, but the pain has dwindled and I feel more able to cherish the times we had and know he will always be present in my heart and my memories.

Sending you strength for the days to come.

IheartNiles · 28/01/2023 00:23

2 years on and it’s still raw for me. An emptiness. But her death was horrific. I have happy times but daily sadness and probably depression.

I feel for you, it’s awful and I’m so sorry.

WhiteJeans07 · 28/01/2023 00:29

I'm sorry for you OP, and everyone else on this thread who has been through this. DDad was taken off his treatment and put on palliative care this week and I can already see him fading away. I go between feeling desperately sad and dull numbness. I took my little DD round to see him today and am wondering whether that will be the last time I should take her 😥

SoShallINever · 28/01/2023 00:41

Oh OP, I so feel for you.
I lost my Mum 3 months ago (Covid), for me watching her go, knowing that she wasn't going to recover, was the worst bit. Afterwards there was peace as I knew she wasn't suffering.
I feel her around me every day, in some ways I still feel she's here loving me.That was a surprise to me to find that the love doesn't go.
Wishing you strength.

MakingTheVeganYorkshirePud · 28/01/2023 00:50

Be there with them. Say goodbye when they go and tell them everything you need to. In my mum's very last moments, she apologised to me and my sister, and I whispered into her ear to go, that I loved her more than anything, thanked her and told her how lucky I was that she was my mum.

I became extremely angry for several years. Thankfully, I had a great partner who supported me through the alcohol, drugs and self-pitying nastiness.

My mum died 21 years ago. I've missed her every day for the last 21 years, and I'll miss her until the day I die, but I promise you, when you've gone through the pain and grieving process, you will be able to get past this horrendous time. You will be able to smile when you think about them, and you will feel happiness and joy day to day in the future.

I'm sorry you are going through this. Take care.

BlackeyedSusan · 28/01/2023 00:50

4 months in and beginning to function a bit again. No capacity to cope with much, no resilience but not feeling it all day everyday. I have though spent a lot of this week crying. (Bloody Archers)

LadyGAgain · 28/01/2023 00:50

ShakespearesBlister · 27/01/2023 20:59

Nothing my love, but I promise you won't be sad forever. One day you will smile fondly again and still feel that love you felt before. I'm so sorry xx

This. Sending love OP

TheBestTeam · 28/01/2023 01:27

Im
Sorry sorry about your loss OP.

I'm going to be sad that my Dad died until I die but I can be happy too. I am happy that I had a nice Dad and I'm happy I have good memories of all the years we had together. I'm happy about the things he taught me and I'm even happy about the physical characteristics he passed in to me and my kids. We all have lovely broad shoulders and long legs. He lived until he was 85 so I'm kind of happy about that. He would have been rubbish at being old and infirm. He died quickly and quietly and I'm so glad about that.

Imagine if you didn't feel sad, now that would be a million times worse surely.

Try to think of being sad in a more positive way. It's ok to be sad.

TheBestTeam · 28/01/2023 01:29

💐. To everyone on this thread who is grieving for someone

Dartmoorcheffy · 28/01/2023 01:34

My dad died almost 30 years ago when I was 24 and I still miss him terribly. I still have dreams that he is in where he was well and before a cancer operation horribly disfigured him, but in the dreams its present day. They bring me a lot of comfort.

It will get easier in time but be kind to yourself and allow yourself to grieve how you want to. There is no right or wrong way .

X

ZeldaWillTellYourFortune · 28/01/2023 01:38

As people told me at the time, remember that they would not want you to be sad. They want you to be happy and enjoy all of the days you have here on earth.

Take it from one who wallowed in grief FAR too long: don't. It doesn't bring them back and it fritters away your own life to boot.

Sorry you are going through this.

Username24680 · 28/01/2023 01:44

@QueenJacinda I’m so sorry for what you’re going through. I hope you’re able to be with them 💐
I’ve lost the 2 family members that I was closest to in world. They were my best friends. 6.5 years ago for one and 8 months ago for the other. My heart still aches for them everyday but I’m starting to be able to think of them fondly without getting overly emotional and, in the words of the great Winnie The Pooh - “How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard” 💐What a privilege to have loved and been loved in return.

GerardWay123 · 28/01/2023 01:45

"Grief is the price you pay for love". My thoughts are with you having recently lost my Dad (Mum passed away a few years ago).

nunsflipflop · 28/01/2023 02:49

Mum was almost 20 years ago, dad more recent. Losing her was gut wrenching and awful, but I learned a lot about myself and the death process. I do have his voice, I still cry when I hear it, it’s a voicemail asking me to ring him back, nothing urgent, he just needs to talk to me, I always reply that I need to speak to him too.

I also took a photograph, while he was still living, of my hand in his. No other part of him for his dignity, but I will cherish that forever.

I wish them a peaceful journey, I will be thinking of you.

tresleches · 28/01/2023 03:47

I'm not sure I have any wisdom, perhaps I'm too new to it (two years in - still new as far as I'm concerned) and it still feels too complicated and painful for aphorisms.

I found the process of my dad dying utterly traumatic, but I was there for all of it. I felt a very strong sense of duty around it all, and was so heartbroken I didn't want to leave him (as he didn't want to leave us). I was definitely in shock for a long time after (shock is a gentler numbing than the word implies) and ruminated on what happened.

The first year was very hard, but I knew it had to be, deserved to be, and I went with it. Possibly too much, I don't know, but I always knew that my dad's death would be crushing (he raised us as a single parent, he was everything). My relationship suffered and I didn't care; I'm sometimes surprised it didn't end. The second year was easier but the sadness underlined everything, and I was still very irritable, quite distant, distracted, and did not look at photos of him. I didn't socialise much. Just into year three, I've started looking a bit and I can feel some of my old drive coming back, if inconsistently. I now want to feel close to him again, when before I just felt wrenched from him.

I'm of the school of "you adapt around the sadness". Their absence is a gaping crater in your life, which you tentatively peer into now and then, but often skirt around the edges of just to be in the world a bit more.

My daughter saw and felt how hard it all was, and is terrified of losing me. I didn't expect that, but I feel part of this profound chain now in a different way. It's rich, but untimately heartbreaking. I've lost friends over the same period and life just seems to become more melancholy and joy is sometimes more vivid as a result. And it doesn't tend to make any sense.

Fraaahnces · 28/01/2023 04:49

I’m so sorry you are grieving the future without your lovely parent in it. While I grieve for the parental love I never had, it must be harder to grieve for what you actually know. I hope you can hold onto the memories that bring you moments of happiness and bring them back to you in these moments.