Do you ever randomly miss your parent years after they died?

[drivinmecrazy]

I'm having one of those days today.
My lovely dad passed away16 years ago.
Most of the time i can compartmentalise it, but sometimes it just hits me.
It's like I'm reliving that moment all these years later.
I'm sure it's normal but each time it happens it's like a punch in the stomach.

So today I'm resigned to just be sad and wait for it to pass.
I just want to wallow in the sadness for a while.
I know tomorrow it'll be behind me.
I guess it'll always be like this?

My dad died 5 years ago, there isn't a day I don't miss him. I'm writing a book about his wartime childhood in tribute to him, my grandparents, uncles & aunt because sadly they are all gone now.

Gosh welling up here, so sorry for all your losses whether recent or a long time ago.

My dad died 28 years ago middle child was just 9 months 🥲, he was due home from hospital on the day he died there.

My sister died 17 years ago when my youngest was just a year old. The kindest and more generous person you could meet.

My niece 15 years ago, far too young.

My mum 13 years ago, such a rock to me after my marriage breakdown.

I get a bout of crying every now and then but feel their presence around and feel they are helping me.

Sending each and everyone of ye hugs, good wishes and my prayers. 💕

My mother died of cancer when I was 10. I’m now 47 and going through chemo and miss her so much.

My parents are still alive, but I would echo the recommendation to listen to griefcast as I listened to them all12 ~ 18 months after my husband died.

I lost my dad 19 years ago. I get hit with waves of sadness. It's especially hard that he didn't get to meet his grandchildren.

My lovely Mum died 10 years ago now and I've cried on Mothers Day every day since. Every now and then I dream about my Mum and I'm really happy when I wake up because it's like I've seen her. Dad died 30 years ago and I can still hear him talking to me at times in my head. I remember the things he said to me and miss him so much. He told me once 'If any man makes you consistently unhappy don't stay with them because you deserve better'. I've tried to remember that and I've told my DD it took.

Yes I also have this. Df died 11 years ago, and I miss him all the time. I so wish he had met my dc - he was such a good dad and would have made a lovely grandad.

Dm is still alive but has dementia and I'm grieving her already, the bits that are already lost. I'm reading her old diaries at the moment, and it's so interesting reading about their lives when I was small. I have such happy childhood memories and it brings them all back. But makes me miss them both all the more. I would love to be able to ask their advice and guidance about things now.

I try and talk to dc about them, what they liked, what they thought about things, probably for me really, to keep them present. Like others have said, I function ok and life goes on, but sometimes grief just sweeps in and I feel the loss so rawly.

I have always had very vivid dreams. I dream of my Mum, who has been dead, over 10 years now, at least once a fortnight. I occasionally dream about my Dad who has been dead for 30 years. I mentioned one of my dreams to my younger sister, one with Mum in and we were at a beach we used to go to when I was a child. I told my sister how happy I had been in my dream and I'm glad I dreamed of Mum so often because it felt like we had been together. The most wistful look came over my sister's face and she told me she has never once dreamed about Mum or Dad and she told me she was really jealous I had been with Mum in my dreams and she hadn't and she started really crying hard and really I felt awful and wished I hadn't told her. She says she never dreams or if she does she never remembers them. I'm afraid to ask my older sister now in case I upset her too.

Yep. It’s a strange feeling - I recently felt really tearful and wanted my mum at the most random and unlikely moment. I was changing trains and looking for my platform and suddenly we were missing mum!

Very much at the minute as my younger sister is pregnant and our parents are missing out on so much. I can just imagine my mum's excitement for the new arrival.
She is still the person I want to share my news with. She would be very supportive or tell me i was wrong if I needed to hear that.
When I was recovering from a fairly serious illness, I found myself in a queue buying her favourite sweets I because I knew she would love them. Then it hit me again that she was dead and she wouldn't be eating them.
I sat in a park and ate them myself.

Absolutely yes. It's been 18 years since my Mum died, I was still in my 20s and now I'm a married woman with 3 children and it seems there is no part of my life that relates to her. Thankfully she knew my DH though. I don't so much miss her as feel bouts of anger that I lost her just when I needed her. My grief has become more selfish in some ways. I'm also old enough to realise how young she was and how terrified she was to leave us. I feel like we never really got to know each other as people. It's bloody unfair.

My sympathies are with everyone on this thread. I've got tears down my cheeks reading through.

We lost DM four months ago yesterday and it's still very raw for me. We always had quite a young family and in the last ten years I've lost an aunt, an uncle and my grandad, as well as DPs DM and brother.

They all hit hard but we managed to work through those periods. I've never felt as bad about anything as losing DM though.

I can understand it's something that a lot of people never get over. I guess it becomes something you have to be easier on yourself about, otherwise you wouldn't be able to live any life yourself.

Yes, over 20 years since I've lost both my parents, but there are odd things that just hit me still.
Always on the proud / happy / emotional occasions (graduations, or weddings of their Grandchildren who don't remember them), and quite commonly when I bump into someone who remembers them and tells me what lovely people they were and how they are still missed. But like you said, sometimes just randomly for no discernible reason at all. Sometimes on a random Sunday morning watching one of my dc play football, and thinking how lovely it would have been to have been able to bring my Dad with me to watch, but sometimes when someone tells a bad 'Dad Joke' without them knowing it would in any way remind me of my Dad, or I see a theatre production is touring that I went to watch with my Mum 30 or more years ago.

I lost one of my parents a year ago and recently had dinner with one of my oldest friends who lost hers when we were teens (we're now both turning 50). It was the first time we'd seen each other since mine had died as we live in different countries but we both ended up in tears talking about them. Predominantly happy tears but sadness too. I can't imagine this break in my heart will ever fully go away and, if I'm honest, I don't think I want it to.

Couldn’t agree more about the photos! Found some amazing photos of my dad when he was young, but this wasn’t until after he died and I have no one to ask about any context to them at all 🙁

Yes, exactly as you describe OP. Cope fine most of the time but when it hits, it's like a punch to the stomach. Almost takes your breath away. I lost DM before I'd even met DH. So she didn't get to see anything of my adult life really and never met her GC. Recently, DC got their first choice of grammar school and once again, there was that feeling of initial happiness but then realising the first person I would want to give the news to isn't here anymore 😔

@drivinmecrazy , pretty much every day and it’s been quite a few years. I used to go on my nans’s birthday/ Christmas/ Mother’s Day to the cemetery with my mum for my Nan and my mum got gradually older and more frail.
I’ll be there on Sunday laying flowers for my mum but also for my Nan. When I stand by my Nan’s grave I will feel my mum beside me. I’m never going to move on from mum’s loss anymore than she was able to move on from my Nan’s.
Mum told me the price you pay for love is grief, so true…

My Dad died suddenly in 1988 when I was in Australia…the worst case scenario when so far away.My darling Mum died suddenly almost 10 years ago and I think about her every day . I cannot eat a primula cheese spread sandwich with cucumber ,now because that was what I was eating when I got the phone call from an ambulance crew to give me the news that my mum was dead. Certain memories never fade.

. 20 years since my mum died, and yea it still happens sometimes. My brother's past the age she died, and my turns coming in 3 years when it'll be closing in on having lived longer without her than with her. I'm not bothered by it, just go with the feelings and thoughts, cry if I need to when I'm on my own (I don't like being seen like that) 🤷‍♂️

So many times I have wanted to share a big moment with my mum and suddenly I realise that I can’t. Horrible for me but understand it’s how grief works 😫

DS is studying the same degree as my DF did. He would be so proud (died 7 years ago when DS was still at school). Sometimes when DS shows something he has made or talks about a topic it breaks my heart that DF isn’t here to talk to him. He would understand it so much more than I do! I can just imagine them chatting for hours about it 😔

I've seen it from both and no side.

My husband's mum died when he was 14.

His father when he was 21.

My sister's husband just died very suddenly, she has three boys. 11, 13 & 24. All her husband's.

My mother's father died before she was born.

I've had no real bereavement, grandparents, that's normal, but I've seen how early grief affects people.

It's just sad.

I totally understand @drivinmecrazy

I was 10 when my mother died and I'm 53 now. Today, I was speaking to my thirty-five year old niece about her. I suddenly felt sad when she said, "I would have loved to have met her." It had hit me that she has been deceased 43 years.

I think of my father often. I was so lucky to have had him 30 years more than my mother. However, I lived in England when I had my children and my father lived in the US. My father didn't meet my youngest child until she was four-years-old. I asked my youngest if she remembered my father and she said that she didn't. It made me sad that she can't. He would have been so proud of her.

Absolutely.

Hits me at the most random moments and it's been 20 years since I lost my mum

Yes, 30 years on I think about my dad probably more than ever, maybe because my teen DS is so like him!