To ask if you ever get over a parents death

[freezingone]

My DM has a terminal diagnosis and amongst the million thoughts flying round my head is all these/ you people in the world who's parents have already died.. are they/you ok? Have they/you got over it? Do you eventually get over it? I'm so full of fear that it's going to fundamentally change me as a person forever & not for the better.. yet of course we all must go through it- some younger than others. I'm in my early 50s- kids pretty grown up, so I'm well aware of how lucky I am in the sense I won't be 'missing out' on any of those poignant moments we want our mums around for, yet I can't imagine her not being around ever again.. does time really heal such a loss?? (Indeed any major loss, can't even begin to switch this to the loss of a child)

My dad has been dead 5 years now. I adored him but I don't feel I had anything to get over. I wish he'd lived long enough to see dc2 (I was six months pregnant when he died) but everyone dies. He had a relatively good death for the cancer which killed him and he was philosophical. Plus by his own metric, he'd had a great life...been loved and travelled to some amazing places from Afghanistan to the then Yugoslavia. Grieving over him when he seemed so accepting would have seemed wrong some how. Instead I honour his last wishes by making sure my children know about him, that he's still talked about and remembered.

I lost my dad four years ago & I still miss him terribly, the 9 days he was in hospital dying were awful & I honestly given the chance would have ended his life for him just to stop his suffering.

My Mum died 13 years ago when I was 38 and my Dad 9 years ago.
I haven't got over it, but that's OK, I don't want to - not having parents is sad.
But the raw grief passes, the moments of automatically thinking you'll tell Mum something or that Dad would like that get less frequent or at least the realisation that you can't doesn't floor you.
Key dates, especially when I am with my siblings can be melancholy, but again I think that's OK. We all cried singing Auld Lang Syne at New Year, not because we were particularly sad, but the collective emotion of the happy memories and that our parents are missing seeing their wonderful grandchildren grow into young adults.

I miss not being able to ask my Mum about raising boys.

I am currently supporting my ex ILs through degenerative conditions and do gain comfort that both my parents were spared that, and us children were also spared the caring - it's just awful.

I was sad on the Saturday before Mother's Day seeing so many people my age and older buying flowers for their Mums.

My Mom passed away almost 6 years ago after a long illness and my Dad 9 months later from cancer that had been undiagnosed while he was looking after my Mom. I was so busy looking after my Dad that I didn’t really have a chance to grieve for her and then when my Dad passed, I was then busy with being the executor of their wills. It was a year later that I had time to take everything in and it hit hard. All of a sudden felt real. Now, a few years in, I would say that my memories of them are loving and I am able to think and talk about them without getting teary eyed (for the most part). You will be fine. You will never be the same, but you will find a new normal. We take time on their birthdays to go to their favourite restaurant and reminisce about them. They were funny, wonderful people and it is easy to remember them with fondness.

@freezingone I lost my mum at 2yrs old..it had a catastrophic affect on me.
As an adult, it's different, you can express grief in a much better way, and don't rely on a parent the way a child does.
Be glad you have had your Mum well into adulthood.
Dad I lost as an adult.
I think of them both regularly, and just hope there is an 'Afterlife' where we might reconnect with people and animals we loved and lost.

Yes and no. My dad died when I was 18, without any warning. I’m mid 40s now. I never knew him as an adult really and he’s played no part in my adult life. That is a great sadness to me, but I also don’t miss him fixing my car, for example, because he never did.
The grief was overwhelming at first, but these days it’s just a memory which gets triggered at times. My life has carried on growing since then. But it changed me, as a person, and I will never be the person I was before then. I think of my dad at some point most days, and I would give anything to spend an evening with him, but I’m not consumed by grief in the way I was in my 20s.
Like others have said, you do learn to live with it.

You don't get over it, but you learn to sit with the grief, in quietness. The acute pain, in my experience, lessens over time; I still have moments where I reach for the phone to tell my dad something, and then remember that he's gone, and the dull aching of the heart comes back. It's been 3 years, and I'm just starting to get some of my equilibrium back.

Actually, my gran died the same year, and only a few weeks ago I was drinking wine and listening to music and remembered her. I texted my mum and asked her to send a photo because I don’t have any of her. I just wanted to see her lovely face ❤️

Yes! Most definitely this. 💕

@freezingone Sorry for your Mum's illness.
It's never easy losing someone you really love. 🦋

I am really sorry you are going through this. Watching our parents die is absolutely awful & I'm sorry you are having to experience it.

In terms of your questions.. my Dad died 8 months ago, I was 35 and my dd was 9. I don't feel that overwhelming sadness on a daily basis anymore but my god its true when they say it comes in waves. I still have really hard days where it hits me and sometimes I still find it hard to beleive that he is gone and i miss.him so much. I think about him every single day. But .. I can function now and get on with daily life. In terms of changing you, it has changed me, but for the better. I really do realise how precious life is now and how important it is to keep myself as healthy as possible and really just to get out there and experience and see the world but most importantly, not take people for granted and spend as much time as I can with the people I love. I won't lie, there is likely some really difficult days ahead but you will get through them, 1 step at a time..when you are in those early days, literally take it one step at a time and please remember that that awful pain and sadness you may feel, won't stay forever, it does get better, bit by bit. ❤️

Yes. My mum died when I was in my late 20s. She never met my DC. Nearly 2 decades later, it is more a wistful feeling rather than anything raw.

Your experiencing anticipatory grief, I had never heard of it till my dad in his late 50s was dying from a terminal illness. His diagnosis went from a few years to months to weeks very fast. When he was dying I had endless energy (adrenaline) but also multiple times a day this almost panic would come over me, and it would feel as if all the air was winded out of me. I was so scared that he was no longer going to be here. When he actually died, I didn't feel relief but just ok we are on to the next stage. The gut punching panic did subside quite fast as he was now gone so I had no choice but to continue on however it did change me. Even though I have a loving husband and small kids, I was a grown woman in my early 30s and had successfully been running my life before he died I suddenly felt so vulnerable and alone. My dad and I were extremely close, I kind of always knew in life it didn't matter if things messed up because I had the safety net of him (not monetary, he had none) but in the sense of him, his presence and his home. I suddenly didn't have that anymore and it hurt to my core. It still does but it does get easier, slowly you start to have one good day followed by lots of bad days but then the good days become more with less bad days.

Its true, the loss stays with you always, life and yourself just grow around it. I miss him so much more and more infact and it feels so unjust that such an amazing man with so many plans was taken so soon and in such a cruel way however he is here in many ways. I know exactly what he would say in nearly all situations and I know he wanted me to live a full life not shrouded in grief because to do so his love would have been in vain and I am sure your mother will want the same for you.

This is not going to be an easy time, it will hurt but you will eventually come through it and grow from it. Please read about anticipatory grief knowing what I was feeling was normal helped me realise I was coping so much better than it felt at the time.

Use this time just to be with her, look at photos, chat and just be in her presence, soak her up. Sending you a hug x

I lost my Dad when I was 31 (sudden) and my mums been diagnosed with a terrible neurological illness which has progressed quickly to remove her quality of life but will likely be a very slow end. It’s heartbreaking to watch. Therefore, I’ll have lost both my parents before I turn 40. I have no grandparents left and never had any aunties/uncles or cousins as my parents were both only children. I have a newborn baby and that’s the only thing that keeps me going.

When I lost my dad I would beg the gp to let me know exactly when the pain would stop and he said it takes time. It took me 6 weeks until I was well enough to get back to work without breaking down in tears everyday. You then have good days and bad days, I found my wedding period the year after difficult. The more time that goes on it’s just certain memories that trigger me.

With a sudden death it’s all the unknowns/wish you had asked them. Have a think about things you want to know more details about things that have happened in your past / your children might want to know and keep a note of the answers. Who people are in photographs, what other relatives were like etc. You sound like you have had a wonderful life and time with your mum and like you said she has always been there for you through those milestones. It’s going to be upsetting and difficult but keep those amazing memories close and keep making special memories / giving her your time. You can then take comfort in knowing she was as happy as she could be in her illness and that will help you through your pain :)

The pain I felt when I lost my mum was unreal. I couldn't stop crying and still cry sometimes now. It does get easier but my last phinecall I had before she died ill never forget and glad I had it. 2 days later she died of Sepsis and a perfersted bowel

I have not experienced a loss of a parent. However my aunt lost her son suddenly and unexpectedly in their early thirties. It made me realise that any parent would choose for it to be them than their child. Perhaps that may be of comfort to some. Both my parents lost their dads as children. My mums mum was also only 70 when she died. When my cousin died, I thought that time is a healer was complete nonsense. But perhaps a death of an elderly parent may be easier to come to terms with. The only things that's guaranteed in life is death.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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 💐

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 .

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.

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.