To ask why your parents dying is so catastrophically awful

[NCdoinggriefwrong]

obv talking about parents who die of natural causes and who are elderly…(not those who die with young kids or at age 50 etc - am talking the 75+ cohort)

Have NCed for this as think I might be U.

my DH’s father has Parkinson’s alongside what is increasingly looks like dementia and is dying. He was diagnosed at 81 and is now 86 and obviously declining. My DH has been in an absolute tailspin about this on an ongoing basis, which at some level I understand but I also sort of think he needs to manage a bit better and pull
himself together - he’s had 5 years to get used to the idea his dad has a progressive disease, he knows it’s only going in one direction, and at the end of the day, his dad is 86, how long do people really live?

and it got me thinking (and searching MN threads) about why people are so devastated when their parents die. I have a fabulous relationship with my parents and ofc I will grieve them and miss them when they’re gone (dad in his 80s, mum in her 70s). But I can’t imagine falling apart because my parents do something utterly foreseeable and get old
and die. I’ve been through my parents’ funeral wishes and probate stuff etc with them and we’ve acknowledged they won’t be around forever and are just enjoying the time we do have.

Am I a horrible person and utterly cold fish? I feel like I’m missing something major. FYI I am a compleyely
empathetic person irl so it’s not that I am an emotionless robot in my day to day life. I just don’t understand why a parent dying is anything other than expected and, well, just sad.

@JusthereforXmas that's a very unusual reaction for a child, most children are frightened of losing a parent. It was something I worried about frequently as a child growing up during the troubles in Belfast, this was well before age 9.

I remember my friends Dad dying when she was 8, her parents were divorced and she didn't live with her Dad but she would often cry about missing her Dad for years afterwards.

My dad died at the beginning of the month. Unexpectedly and suddenly

He might have been 86 but he was fit and healthy (and tall, iyswim). We all expected him to go on for st least another 3 years (his mother died at 89) if not 10 (his mother's older sister died at 102).

We are all devastated - and that includes my dh, his son-in-law.

It wasn't that we were in denial: we talked about death and his plans with my dad (in fact, he'd started writing his own eulogy). It was just he was still so full of life: not long back from an extended holiday in the Southern Hemisphere with his lady friend who lived there. But he was still making plans and living life to the full.

You can't get much more pragmatic than an ex-cattle-farmer-turned-doctor so we did often talk about death. So we knew it would come - it just came much sooner than we expected

He had friends of all ages and they too are in shock.

My mother died 11 years ago, as an indirect result of an accident she'd had a few years previously. That was to an extent a relief as we'd "lost" her a few years before, so once she'd actually died, we could start to remember her better as the glorious, beautiful woman she'd been.

Dad's death is still raw. It's also meant that the grief I have from missing my mother and the fact that I couldn't share ds growing up with her has resurfaced

We had the funeral last week. Dad might have been 86 and assumed that, statistically, there would be few people there. But there was about a 100 people, of all ages, there: friends, family, neighbours, many, many former colleagues (despite retiring 30 years ago), all wanting to pay their respects.

His was a life well lived. But it doesn't make it any less sad when someone who was loved (and who loved) so deeply, goes.

It's nothing to do with being a dysfunctional "enmeshed" family: dh comes from a dysfunctional family and we felt nothing but relief when his mother died not in the nice way that's we'd felt when my mother died and not a single tear was shed.

The OP doesn't having a fucking clue.

You seem to be incapable of understanding that everyone is different and that not everyone has the same relationship with their parents that you have with yours.

No need to be devastated if your own parents die, if that's not how you feel. But it's absolutely bizarre not to understand why other people might be devastated to lose their parents.

People feel how they feel.

Some people will just be 'sad' at their parents passing away, and will be able to carry on as normal, other people will be absolutely bereft if their parents pass away and will really struggle to carry on for a while. I think it is important to understand grief is very personal and no one should ever judge anyone else for how they choose to grieve, therefore I do find the original post quite distasteful ''I just don’t understand why a parent dying is anything other than expected and, well, just sad'' that is your POV and you are entitled to have it of course, but please understand that other people will grieve differently to you. Your husband is losing his dad, whether it is expected or not, it is still his dad and he has every right to be heartbroken and devastated. My parents are amazing and I know for one I will be absolutely heartbroken when they go.

It’s different when it’s your parent.

And losing someone to a degenerative and/or terminal disease is a different kind of awful, because you don’t know how long it will take and you have a cloud hanging over you indefinitely. It’s like a delayed, visceral type of grief that you try to bottle in because it’s not the right time yet.

I don’t have the words to describe how painful it is. Team DH all the way.

@VickyEadieofThigh you sum up the impact so well. It does indeed permanently tilt your world. I lost a parent earlier this year too and the horror and the grief are so complex and unpredictable. I don’t honestly feel like I am the same person anymore. I don’t feel like there is that layer of love, comfort and belonging anymore. There’s no one in this world that has my back like they did. The world feels colder and harder than before and I wish I could go back to the days when they were still here. The safety, the complete acceptance of who I am, will never be there again in my life time.

As others have said, you will probably feel very very differently when it actually happens. The first parent dying is absolutely awful and when the second one goes it's beyond shocking.

But DH is a parent himself, his children are suffering because he's grieving for a parent he's not yet lost. Does he deserve sympathy? Yes. Does he need to pull himself together for his own family, also yes. If he's genuinely not coping, he needs to get some therapy or something.

Agree with most of the posts on this thread

my mum died at 54 and i still get upset at all the stuff she missed

according to the OP its fine for me to be upset about her but not my dad who is nearly 78

you know that makes no fucking sense don’t you

@TiredyMcTired with all due respect as this is a sensitive subject.

How do you know it wasn't any easier? You can't compare it to not knowing she was going to die. You knew it was coming, you had time to prepare and you got to say goodbye.

people like you honestly scare me, not an empathic bone in your body

HOW can it be shocking when a v old person dies, which is what the OP is talking about???!

No it wasn’t. It was fairly expected

What I find so interesting is that so many people are commenting to tell the OP that she has no empathy and yet they are completely failing to understand that they have no empathy themselves. They are projecting their own individual situations onto others. I read up to about page eight, and the sheer number telling OP ‘wait until it happens to you’ with a touch of glee, like they’re in some elite club because ‘they have grieved’ is unreal.

I've felt exactly the same through this thread. The "wait until it happens to you" posts are far more offensive to me, than the OP. And sadly I'm in that 'elite'club of having lost both a parent and my wonderful husband. I would never dream of saying "wait until it happens to you" to anyone.

Its really not unusual at all, young children do not have the emotional capability of deep empathy and understanding of loss.

If you die your one year old is not very likely to care, someone else will meet their needs and they are programed to be selfish only their needs matter, they wont even remember you existed without others telling them... it doesn't just magically appear at a 2 or 3 or 4 etc... either its a very slow thing we learn and adapt as we mature.

But it kind of like a middle class white man telling a poor black woman that discrimination and privilege dont exist and to just work harder.

Its not a 'I wish your dad dead' its a 'stop talking down about something you have ZERO personal experience of'.

This is a vile post. I hope when it happens to you you remember it and regret your thoughts.

Because it's your mum/dad and the thought that you have no parents now, and will never see them again is a massive shock. It doesn't matter that, on a realistic level, you knew they weren't going to live forever. When you're bereaved you're bereaved and the sadness and shock that goes with losing the second parent is horrendous. My mother was in her late 80s when she died, I grieved for her just as much as if she'd been twenty or thirty years younger.

Is it beyond your comprehension to think that even with an elderly person the circumstances might make some deaths more shocking than others?

I knew my DM was ill but I had absolutely no idea that I would find her unable to get out of bed on the Sunday, she would be unconscious by Wednesday and dead by Friday, which was the day the doctor in hospital told me they were planning to discharge her. I kind of knew she wouldn't come out but I had no idea it would be so quick so yes, I was shocked.

I lost both my parents, but they were very elderly and poorly, and it seemed, although I was very upset, to be the sort of cycle of life.

But, I lost my DH in April, and it has totally poleaxed me. So, so much worse.🙁

Oh I see! That makes more sense. Sorry for your loss.

My word! The total lack of empathy.

My Dad died 4 years ago and am so grateful that DH was so kind and supportive. It made a hell of a difference

💐 To OP's DH and all others grieving on this thread. .

No. It’s a massive shock that you will never see or hear them again if they die before their time. Not if the are old and have lived a long life! You know it’s coming.

So she was old and Ill?

You know it's coming but it can still feel like a shock.

When my mum died I knew she would die one day, but she died very suddenly and I did feel it was a shock. Late 60s so in reality that's a dying age.