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.

Yes, it’s the last paragraph of @SchoolBlazers post that nails it for me.

@Loulou560 she may not have met your children but I bet she was there for a lot of the big things in your life? Which is lovely.

Poor little girl I know dad just died, she's 9. That's being absolutely robbed of a parent. That is going to have a significant effect on the rest of her life.

Sorry but at a certain age you should have come to terms with the fact it is going to happen at some point, it's a countdown!

You obviously know your parent is going to die but that doesn’t mean you don’t grieve. My DF died in his 80s and he had cancer for a number of years so he was clearly on borrowed time but didn’t mean I wasn’t seriously impacted when he died and valued the support of DH then and in the previous years. It’s 6 years since he died but I still have my moments of sadness. In the early days of grief it would often feel someone had punched me in the chest and I struggled to breathe.

I certainly found the last few years of my dad’s life hard and every time the phone rang wondered whether that was the phone call to tell me to come to the hospital or that he had died. But I did carry on with life. I assume the OP’s DH is in this phase but possibly needs counselling to help him through it. Might be harder for him as in another country.

I agree. I think the OP has had a hard time on here. From the way she’s written, I think she’s been kind and sympathetic to the point where she doesn’t have anything left in the barrel.

My Dad died last year. He’d been quite unwell for a couple of years but his death was sudden. One of the things I discovered was that, when someone dies, there is just so much to do. We’re still doing it now. Grief kicks in afterwards but we still have to keep our lives going.

The people I know who wallowed in their grief (after the death of a parent) made things much harder for themselves in the long term.

I lost my father when I was a teenager. It does change you. It was overwhelming at the time. Very different type of grief to losing my mum when I was almost fifty and she was in her late 80s with no quality of life. I felt sadness for the last few years of her life, mixed with gratitude that we’d had her in our lives for so long.

I have to agree with you @justteanbiscuits

There isn't any proper way to grieve though, is there. People are being awful about the OP purely based on the fact she hasn't lost her parents yet. But many of us have lost a parent or both parents and although felt sad and bereaved, didn't have the crying for weeks, or feeling like you'd been punched in the guts.

A sudden death is a different matter. But when you have a parent well into their 70s, who has a terminal condition like parkinson's, dementia or cancer, then you have time to get your head around it. For some of us, dealing with months or years of stress over an increasingly ill parent, their death is a relief. You get your own life back. That doesn't mean we didn't love our parents, or that they didn't love us, but that we have accepted their life came to a natural end and that we can remember the good times and move on.

I think the pandemic has a lot of blame for this - all the "sadly died" stories about people well into their 90s. Obviously nobody is jumping with joy any time someone dies but come on, a death of someone in their late 80s or 90s is not tragic by any stretch of the imagination.

Yes, you are. My mum died when I was 7 and my dad when I was 22, life is incredibly hard without your parents.I found it very difficult when I had my son. Talking about probate and we know they won't be around forever seems very cold to me. My son who is now 17 tells me how he is going to look after us when we are old ( possiblity because he worries that we won't be here). I hope he never thinks like you.

Some people are so cold.

I really hope that my children are not utterly overwhelmed by grief when I die. They will (I hope) be adults with well established lives and children by then.

My Mum has been sorting out her house to make it easier when she dies (the Swedish call it death cleaning).

Yes, you are. My mum died when I was 7 and my dad when I was 22, life is incredibly hard without your parents

With all due respect though, that is not what the OP is talking about. She is talking about people who fall to bits and can't cope with the death of people who are aged 75 and above.

@CruCru I'm sorry for the loss of your dad. Your mum sounds fantastically level-headed.

I've also lost both parents. In my father's case suddenly and too young. Of course on an individual level it's heartbreaking and a huge life event, but it's also the natural order of things. I view it as one of life's harder, sadder rites of passage. The alternative - that my parents had buried me - doesn't bear thinking about.

In my dad's case the shock was horrible, and in my mum's case the stress of a long-drawn-out terminal illness was awful, and I grieved them, but I didn't fall apart and I don't feel like my life was ruined or changed forever.

Please don't presume to tell me how I felt when my mother died.

We’re trying to do a bit of this. I cleared the family home when my mum went into care. Emotionally draining.

My 50 year old cousin was devastated when her great-uncle died age 105. The uncle was only unwell for a few weeks before passing away. I found that a bit odd. Of course, you will miss the person at whatever age they die but when they've had such a long life and the chance to know so many friends and family it feels different, as someone 'outside' to someone dying much younger iyswim. As though they and their loved ones have had 'more' than they could ever have expected and way more than the average, as opposed to when someone dies younger / much younger and misses out on so much life, as do their loved ones.

I was widowed aged 25, DH died very unexpectedly aged 27 and I was grief stricken. But I can honestly say that losing my mom, when she was 87, hit me so much harder. Even though she had been ill for some time, and her mobility had become very bad there was a tiny part of me that believed my mom would never die.
Are you a cold fish? I think so.

My parents died within six months of each other. They were very old - their combined age was 196. When Dad died I was a bit shocked because I’d always expected Mum to go first but my grief was manageable. When I lost my mum I was on my knees. Perhaps it was the accumulation of grief and everything changing so quickly, who knows? Anyone it nearly broke me. Nobody knows how they’ll be affected until it happens and I think it’s a bit naive to speculate.

My Uncle is 88 and I know he's old but at the moment he's in really good health and you wouldn't think he was as old as he is. When he dies I will be devastated, partly because I have very little family left now and he would be one of the last ones but mainly because I love him.

DH is 20 years older than me. Will it be acceptable for me to be devastated when he dies or should I just crack on as I know it's coming and should be prepared?

Well if you are shocked that they die when they are v old and or/ill then that's on you I guess.

Same. If I died young then fair enough but bloody hell if I am old and have lived a good life I certainly hope my (by then, very very much adult children) are not completely devastated and overwhelmed by grief to the point it affects their life and their partners/children etc.

Well if you are shocked that they die when they are v old and or/ill then that's on you I guess.

And being cold and lacking empathy is on you. Just because you don't get it doesn't mean it's wrong.

I'm not a cold person I just don't like all this drama around elderly people dying. Their lives should be celebrated not mourned as some great tragic loss.

I’m with you Op. For me it’s black and white. People live and then they die. I am quite cold though. It would appear some people never get over it. Everyone is different I suppose.

OPs husband hasn't got over it, and it hasn't even happened yet! She pointed out her parent(s) might die first, and then what? Does she also get the luxury of checking out of work and family life? Or does she have to continue picking up her husband's slack, like she has done for years?

I'm not a cold person I just don't like all this drama around elderly people dying. Their lives should be celebrated not mourned as some great tragic loss.

It's possible to do both. DM's funeral wasn't morbid, I wrote the eulogy to celebrate her (I couldn't read it though as I was too upset - perhaps I should have pulled myself together). I still cry for my Mum 6 years later but I can still laugh at the things we did and the good times we had. She was a huge loss to me, the same as DF and my Uncle will be when he goes.

I lost one parent as a teenager and one as an adult. I was less grief stricken at losing a parent in their 80s than losing one in their 50s because one was more in line with what you expect to happen - the normal order of things.

However, the really profound feeling was the loss of the knowledge and responsibility of the older generation. There was always someone older than me who was responsible for me (even when I was a successful adult with my own children). When both my parents were dead suddenly I became that older generation that was the repository of knowledge and responsibility. I remember my siblings and I sharing a “we are it - the buck stops with us” moment.

@MoggyMittens23

Same. If I died young then fair enough but bloody hell if I am old and have lived a good life I certainly hope my (by then, very very much adult children) are not completely devastated and overwhelmed by grief to the point it affects their life and their partners/children etc.

Rather than being about being surprised and thus devastated about an elderly person's death, I'd think it's more about the deep love of that person. That doesn't alter, no matter the age. Sometimes, it is possible to be relieved by someone's passing (ie. my own DM was in great pain with cancer), but still deeply grieve for them. Grieving is complex.