To think it's really fucking unfair to have lost both my parents?

[Magpieblue]

That's it really. They both passed away this year, within two months of each other. I'm mid 30s, with a 16MO DD. Some of my friends have lost a parent, but none have lost both and I'm finding it really hard not to feel like my life has fallen apart. I'm so sad at all the things they - and me, and DD - will have missed out on.

Didn't want to post this in bereavement, because it's full of sad, broken-hearted people like me, and I want to hear from those who have come through it. Anyone?!

Hello OP. I read your post and I really feel for you. My mum lost both her parents in her teens and it came as a horrible blow. I've often asked how she coped especially as her friends had both or one of their parents. She always says that life just has a habit of pulling you through and to try and find a little bit of happiness in the things you enjoy. She's told me that the grief will eventually subside and that she just had to kind of embrace the grief and allow herself to feel utterly shitty at times because, in all fairness, it is a shitty situation. My mums now in her 60s and I know she'd have loved me to meet her parents buy it just wasn't meant to work like that. Have you considered any kind of counselling? Your situation is really tragic and I feel awful for you. Please take care of yourself x

I lost my mum at 18 and my dad at 22. It sucks but time heals, it really does. Two decades on and I don't even think of them every day, and there's sometimes a wistfulness but not really grief anymore if I'm honest. I have a great life, a full life, and I know they'd be extremely proud and indeed happy for me that I've moved on. It royally fucked up my twenties emotionally though if I'm honest. But in my forties, yes, I've come through it now.

I lost both my parents within 5 months of each other, they were mid 70's and I was 39. I had other issues at the same time like a divorce, buying a house and a 7yo DS. I am so sorry for your loss.

I had a lot of supportive family and my boss at work was great, as were my colleagues and friends. In spite of this I was struggling, so I went to my GP who referred me for counselling (between my parents deaths) It really helped me get some perspective and enabled me to deal with everything. I had to help my DS to come to terms with the loss of his DGP'S.

I was able to explore a lot of emotions in counselling such as how much I had worried about my sick mum being widowed and how she would cope, would I need to find her a nursing home etc. I was able to feel some relief that both parents had not had to go though dementia, that they were still in their own home and we could remember them in that way.

It is OK to feel the way you re feeling, Magpie. I've been at the 'how dare you leave me' stage, and everyone grieves and comes to terms with their loss on different timescales. But you do have the means to pass on to your DD all the photos and stories of her DGP'S, and keep their memory alive.

You will get there as I did. You will still have tearful times even years later, but the immediate rawness recedes and you find that you are coping.

Uretha - it's great in a way you feel as you do and I wish I could.

But I don't consider it 'fair' that my mum died when she was 52. She never saw me get my GCSEs, A levels, degree, married, meet her grandchildren ... Effectively she and my dad (though he lived a little longer) didn't live to the age most people do.

I recognise that is natural in a way but it still doesn't feel fair: some of my friends have grandparents who are alive and well!

Yes, it is unfair.

I lost my Father at 3 months and my mother had a breakdown and was never able to parent me. I grew up in her house but she wasn't a parent to me . She is still alive but we go through years of no contact and she hasn't called or seen me for around 4 years now.

It has been hard bringing up my own children knowing that no one 'has our back' family wise. No one.

I'm not sure it 'gets better' - I think you just learn to live with it.

I am sorry for your loss.

It's not fair at all but sadly life rarely is

My Dad died when I was 7 and my Mum when I was 25 leaving me on my own with no siblings.

It does get easier (though not better), I have the best friends who are like my family which helps. Do you have a good circle of friends?

Yes, it is crap. I'm now mid-40s, and quite a few of my contemporaries have lost one parent by now - but plenty others still have one or more grandparent, let alone parents. I remind myself that 100 years ago, it would have been very normal. And that some people's parents are pretty rubbish and absent while alive.

It could have been worse and they brought me up well so that I could cope with all practical things (jury's still out on the emotional side.)

It gets easier, but I don't think it will ever go away entirely - and that's a good thing. It shows thry were important to us and they're not forgotten.

This happened to a friend she lost both parents to cancer in a few weeks of each other, they were in the hospice together. Awful. But I know she said she found it easier that one parent wasn't left behind and having been in that situation I totally understand. I lost my mum when I was 27 and was heartbroken. My dad is still around but had a brain hemmoredge when I was six so he is really difficult, he argues with us a lot and has no real emotional centre. I know this sounds awful but in some ways I wish they had gone together. He misses my mum but he has alienated most people so doesn't have anyone else really. I live in a different country to him and my siblings so sometimes i find my in laws quite overbearing... I think it does get better. I'm pregnant now and so miss my mam and not being able to ask her questions... Life's just not fair.

I suppose I don't expect life to be fair. Everyone has their challenges, I've been lucky in some ways and unlucky in others, and I don't like to linger on feelings of unfairness as I think it leads to bitterness and resentment.
Envy is the thief of joy. No, I don't have my parents and I would dearly like it to be otherwise, but that isn't how life works and I'd only be hurting myself and others by focusing on unfairness.

But I'm many years further down the path than you are, that makes a big difference.

for you Op. I. So sorry you've lost both your parents in such a short time.

DH lost his mam in June, his dad 7 years earlier and he is struggling as well. Some days I feel I can't help him, or don't know how to help him. He tells me he feels all alone in the world with nobody to fall back on, nobody to share things with. A few weeks ago he told me he can see why people kill themselves. All not very nice things to hear. But I am glad he is expressing himself rather than bottling things up.

His GP has offered bereavement counselling but he won't take it as he doesn't want to look weak. Wish he would.

Are you able to g to your GP and ask for a referral to a counsellor?

I lost my mum when I was 30 and my dad when I was 39. Both were sudden and unexpected. DH has also lost both his parents. I think I felt saddest for my DC who grew up without grandparents. I try not to think of it as unfair because I have been blessed in other ways, but sometimes it's so hard.

PP have mentioned not having to see their parents grow old and need care. But I have found myself the sole carer for my aunt who has no partner or children and is now very frail and has dementia. I struggle not to feel resentful about this because I have friends going through the same with their parents, but my aunt was never involved in my life until she needed me. I feel I have had the double whammy of losing my parents younger but still dealing with the crap of caring for the elderly. No, it's not fair, but I have healthy DC and others don't. I do my best to count my blessings.

I am aware some people get dementia and it's awful and cruel; I wouldn't wish it on anybody.

But they often get dementia well into their seventies, eighties and nineties. They have often lived full, happy and inspiring lives before that. They generally have seen their adult children married, with homes and children of their own.

People say this to me and I nod and I smile as they mean well. But it isn't a fair thing to say. Not every man or woman who grows old becomes frail and feeble; not every elderly person gets dementia.

It's very hard to explain the effect it's had on me. I thought I knew, when I lost my mum, what it was like to have no one (my dad was the sort of parent who signed cheques and did little else) but I didn't. As he was there and present in a way - now I have no one. There's a sort of freedom in that, but it's a bleak and lonely freedom: a remote mountain or moor, a grey empty sky.

I see silver haired people all the time with their grandchildren and it hurts, then of course the gut-wrenching terror that I might die.

I never speak of it or them in real life. It depresses people and it scares them. But it's always with me.

Life just isn't fair: it can be really, undeservedly, tough. My DM died when I was in my early 20s: I was distressed for her, and for me - it was only later I realised any children I might ever have would miss out on her too.

My father died when I was in my 30s, but he'd been a rubbish father and an entirely useless grandfather. My DC are down to one grandparent, who has dementia and can't remember who they are.

You have to do the best with what you have. You do get over the worst of it, but it can still sometimes sting - I can remember waiting for pick-up at nursery school and hearing other mothers slagging off their mothers (who had their DC for the weekend, or for tea once a week or whatever) and thinking, you just don't know how lucky you are.

OP, you will probably always miss your parents, but it does get less acute as the years go by. I can't wait to be a grandmother and to give to my grandchildren what my DC didn't get.

I really feel for you. I'm 35 and have lost my mother this year. My father has developed a degenerative illness and altered out of all recognition. And my dear sister in law has also passed away suddenly this month. It does seem hard to understand why some families don't have to cope with such sorrow while others do. But at the same time, we need to remember that many others are much further along the richter scale of human suffering.

Thanks everyone for responding, and I'm sorry if it reopened old wounds (perhaps not wounds that ever really close). It really does make me feel better to know it's not just me, because IRL it does feel like it's just me. My DP is supportive, but he doesn't really understand - he's nearly 40 and parents fit and well, and has only just lost his last grandparent.

My friends are ok, but they don't understand either. And I feel I'm borderline undeserving of sympathy - I'm 36, with my own family who my mum and dad got to meet, and my parents were 65 & 70 (not old, but not young either). I feel so sorry for the posters who lost their parents in their teens and 20s, and I'm in awe of your resilience.

I think it also reminds my friends that they will have to face it themselves at some point. If they're lucky. That's the thing, it's natural to outlive one's parents and I know not everyone does. I'm just really sad and I had always thought this would be a couple of decades off.

cornbarley "a bleak and lonely freedom" is such a good description

Rainicorn sorry for your DH, and must be v hard for you. I hope he does try to get help (I think I might).

Sorry not to reply to everyone else individually, but your words and experiences have meant a lot.