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.

I lost my Dad in January following his diagnosis 5 months before of liver cancer. I had counselling from his hospice, anticipatory grief they called it. And I thought I was going to be relieved his suffering was over/life would return to normal.

The grief has knocked me off my feet. I miss his voice, his nightly phone call, sunday afternoons spent watching rugby with him and doing his housework. I feel that I'm no longer who I was. My foundations have shifted. I never honestly imagined that it was going to be like this the other side. I miss him with every single fibre of my being. He was so very far from perfect, but he was my Dad.

Respectfully, “just” 77?? 77 is old! It is a good age to die at.

I lost both parents in the space of 5 months 17 years ago, and I am still devastated about how much they missed out with their DGC who they adored, and who adored them right back. It's so hard.

Mum was only in her early 60s, not long retired. Life is so unfair.

@NCdoinggriefwrong I do hope you aren't coming out with this shit to your DH!! He needs your support right now. My husband complained that I was neglecting our kids in the last week of my mother's life when I spent all the time I could at her bedside. By fuck did he see the other side when it was his sainted ma!!

My husband died before any of our parents. I barely noticed when my mum died, his dad died, then a few years later my dad died. The older generation are supposed to die before us, it’s mad to be very upset about it. A bit sad, yes.

I am still traumatised by my husband’s death.

Your parents have known you since the moment you were born. They've always been there for the whole of your life - and coming to terms with their deaths can be very hard.

Obviously, a lot depends on the quality of the relationship that you had. For those of us who had loving parents, whose parents were our confidantes, our help in difficult times, our comfort in sad times, our rock who loved us unconditionally, when they die it leaves a space that can never be filled.

My father died 25 years ago and my mother, 4 years ago. I especially miss my mum. I knew she wouldn't live forever but when she died it was sudden and unexpected. It felt like my anchor chain had been broken and I was cast adrift.
I think that's what parents are, they're our anchors. They tie us to the family, to our childhoods, to our past. They share our history. I shall never not miss them.

You will never see them again. You won't hear them wishing you Happy Birthday ever again. When something happens, you can't ring them and share it. You can't have a giggle together. All the things you take for granted will never happen again, ever. It's devastating. Eight years on, it's still devastating, but I've learnt to live with it.

DFOD!!! People routinely live into their 80s and 90s! Don't be so fucking crass!

I lost both parents recently. They were both in their 90s.

It wasn’t catastrophically awful by any stretch. I miss my darling dad so much. He was the best of us and in rude physical and mental health until a very short illness took him at 94. But I rationalise it. How lucky was I to have such old parents, neither of which had a slow decline or dementia. They lived in their own house and never needed care.

They both had good deaths after long and happy lives. I feel lucky. If I’d lost them in their 70s, or even 80s - I’d feel
quite differently.

YABVU because based on its not even your OWN parents that are dying.... OP 🙄 tone deaf or what!

My dad died a couple of years ago almost 80. I saw him a few times a year and we'd never been close. I had never thought he was a good or even vaguely interested dad and I was mostly just glad that he died before my mum. I also won't be hugely grief struck when my mum dies as again she puts a lot more effort into other things than our relationship, I'm the one who puts all the effort in there.

Were my ds to die though then my grief would be completely over whelming and I would be totally and utterly devastated.

😳

Once you've actually been through it, you might have a smidgeon of an insight. Although I wouldn't bet on it.

I agree. Both my parents died in their 80s. I hope I don’t live longer than that

My parents died at 87 and 91. I miss them every day. It doesn't mean I can't get on with life but so many things have changed forever.

Quite often I am doing something or DD has done something and I want to phone them to tell them about it and I can't. Or I go somewhere and I think how much they would have enjoyed it.

I no longer have someone who I can reminisce about certain things with.

I am now the oldest in our family so that makes me think more about my own mortality.

Before they died I always thought it must be sad to lose a parent but I never truly understood. Even when my late DP lost his mum I felt sad but probably didn't really understand how he felt.

Obviously everyone will be different depending on the relationship they had with their parents but it certainly changes your life in ways you could never imagine.

My Mum died age 62, I was 22. I was so devastated that when someone knocked on the door on the evening of her death, I thought for a moment it was the hospital come to say they had made a mistake. I still miss her every day. YABU or deliberately goady.

I can see where you are coming from. My mum is 90 with stage 4 cancer. I will be so sad when she dies and so will my children but she has had a very long and happy life. I can’t see how I will be devastated as it is obviously expected and I’ve had a long time to get used to the idea. I would be frankly embarrassed if in these circumstances I couldn’t hold it together.

My dad died when I was in my 20’s so I know what it’s like to lose a parent prematurely.

Everyone grieves differently. I lost my DF to MND at 72 years of age. From diagnosis to his death was 5 awful months. My DM and DSis grieved in a completely different way to me. I'm quite pragmatic. Death is a part of life and your life does change forever when you lose a parent. You are not heartless no matter what anyone says on here. Not everyone deals with grief in the same way and at counselling we were all told there is no right or wrong way, just different ways and just because I wasn't hysterically crying 24*7 did not mean I loved my DF any less. I always think and thought about how lucky my DF was, he had a lovely marriage for 50 years, a nice life, no health issues until the end and lived a fairly stress free life. He was a happy go lucky person and he went before all of us, the only way he ever would have wanted it.

My Dad died suddenly and unexpectedly last year.

The sheer tidal wave of missing him was unbearable. Knowing I would never see him again felt unmanageable. Knowing that there was no one in the world who loved me like he did was horrible.

He was a brilliant Dad and I am not sure I will ever stop missing him. I’m functioning ok on a day to day level but it’s still very painful.

Because they're your parents 🤷🏼‍♀️ My Dad has Parkinson's and I worry every time I see him is going to be the last. Unless there's a reason, such as you were abused by your parents, I think it's normal to be devastated.

Many reasons, including the fact that you love them, and they love you. There’s not actually that many people in the average life who genuinely love you, care about you, are interested in your life. When they’re gone, they’re gone. You go to tell them something and they’re not they’re. The shared interests you had, the memories you shared together… it’s just gone. So you go to ask them about so and so, tell them about this thing that made you think of them… nothing. Nobody cares.

At your birthday, there’s just one less person who really genuinely cares that you’re alive. Who you really matter to. When you have a milestone: get married, have a kid, achieve something… they’re not there.

Thats just a small example.

Fair enough. But you can be poleaxed by the absolute missing of someone, no matter their age, or yours. Knowing you can never, ever talk to someone you love again is very sad, even if they did have a ‘good innings’.

Because it’s a huge loss if you love them and had a close relationship.

Because your parents gave you life, supported you and loved in a very unique way to anybody else ever has or ever could.

There’s a huge huge gap in your life once they are gone that can never be filled and it takes everyone different amounts of grieving and time to process that loss and learn to live in a new way.

I don’t see how being forewarned can mitigate that fact they they are gone and you have to now deal with this massive loss?

Seeing a parent suffer also brings a huge amount of pain, it’s not just about whether they are going to eventually die from the disease that’s causing the suffering.

Yanbu. I haven't been devastated by anyone I know dying in their 80s or 90s. I did feel an uncle who died at 76 (pancreatic cancer) was unlucky as he was full of life otherwise.

I think of the people I know who have died in their 40s and 50s, and a close friend who has been diagnosed with early onset dementia at 60, even celebs I loved who died early - like Sean Lock and Rik Mayall and Victoria Wood - and just cannot get upset about old people dying! Not really. It's sad, but hardly unexpected.

Sorry, that was unclear - I should have said "just turned 77"!

Come back and update this thread when it happens to you.