One parent died then 'lost' other parent too

[Desperateforsleepplease]

I guess it's inevitable perhaps and I should have expected it but the death of my father from a terminal condition 18 months ago has led to the almost equal sense of loss of my mother. Or course we are all changed by the loss and perhaps others think I've changed beyond recognition too.

My mother is now afraid of driving in the dark, is more hands off with grandchildren (playing with them ) and is emotionally distant.

Not a criticism on her but just an observation / sad reflection. I was so afraid of the grief for my dad (only aged 59) that I didn't really have the time or space to consider the 'loss' of my mum. Due to my dad's illness they were unable to provide much support (emotional or physical) when my daughters were born and early years. After my dad's death my mum said she was excited to be able to be a grandma/mum again after being a carer but perhaps we both underestimated the future.

Can anyone else relate!?

How sad for you all. I’m sorry for your loss OP. Give your mum time and space, give her lots of reassurance and tell her she is loved. She is now having to forge an identity for herself without her life partner and this must be so hard. Time is a healer and grief can be all consuming so any changes can take a long time.

I understand what you mean. Remember that 18 months is nothing in terms of grief.
She will need a long time to come to terms with her new 'normal' and build a new life. Hopefully this life will include you and her grandchildren.
It must be very hard for all of you 💐.

Grief is a difficult thing and losing your life partner is really tough.

My FIL never really recovered from MIL’s passing. He went through the motions, came to us once a week and his other son’s the same but he lost all zest for life. He then got cancer and died about 5 years after MIL.

Hopefully with time things will improve for your mum but it is still early days for her.

I’m an RMN working with older people and see a lot of patients with severe depression and suicidal thoughts following loss of their life partner, it’s very sad to see😢

My husband died over 2 years ago. It certainly shook me up, I'm much more cautious about life in general now. It takes a long time to get back to any sense of normality, in fact I don't think that is possible. It's a totally new situation, having to navigate the world without your life partner.
I'm sorry for your loss, it's very hard for you too, but your mum really is having to find a new way forward every day. If he was the love of her life that's a certain sort of sadness. If she has regrets that's another layer. It's so complicated and, often, impossible for others to understand.
Take care of yourself.

When my amazing dad died I watched my mum die with him......its been so heart breaking. She goes through the motions adores us all but just isnt mum anymore.

Assuming your Mother is the same age as your father then she could have 30yrs of life left. Try and encourage her into doing things with your kids. Could be a life saver for your Mum. Good luck. Xxx

I can certainly relate. I have commented on this often to my siblings.
My Dad died young (60s) and since then my mother has been amazing and strong in all sorts of ways... but somehow we lost her as a 'mother', and it became our role to look after her.
Something that has made me sad every year since he died (over 20 years ago!) is that Mum will get very upset/offended if we forget their wedding anniversary, or don't acknowledge his birthday, for example... but she never seems to think that Father's Day might be sad for us... or never makes the first move to acknowledge his birthday. It's always expected of us that we (her 4 children) will do that.
We have all forged a very different relationship with her now, and all get along - but I certainly feel like the 'mother' aspect has gone.

I think this is rarely spoken off, but I'm well aware having lost my dad young (in his 50s) of the impact on the partner left behind.

Having a partner gives someone to bounce ideas off, companionship and a wider social circle. It also gives back up if one of them is ill.

I see lots of (generally) women who lose confidence in older age with things like driving and I do wander if they are aware how much they rely on thier husband. The men rely on their wives for cooking and looking after themselves. It's different to being single as they have come to rely on each other.

Involve your mum in things, accommodate her staying over etc. It's a lot to adjust to.

And I am so sorry... what I also should have said is that I am so so sorry for your loss.

I'm sorry for your loss op. I think you have made a really interesting observation. My Dad died 6 years ago and my Mum's life is much more restricted since then. She is in her 80s now and in some ways it's natural that she leans on us more to help her navigate life but there's a sense that they were a team and now he's gone she hasn't been able to provide his side of the team herself. In the year after he died I thought she had Alzheimer's disease. Her short term memory was absolutely shot. She did get that back after the shock of his death had reduced but as you say to some extent you lose both of your parents when one dies. However, it sounds like your Mum is quite young so she will probably become more like her old self over time.

I can relate. After my mum died relatively young it really diminished my dad. She was the lynchpin of the family really. But i guess it would have been the same if he died first. With both of them around, you could kind of recreate the childhood family dynamic at Christmases etc. With her gone, it was just totally different. Felt like being orphaned even though one parent was alive.

Yes, though maybe not in the same way. I lost my dad when I was 18. My mum is still alive (I think 🤷🏻‍♀️), but I lost her to an unhealthy relationship with a man, haven’t seen her in years and wouldn’t choose to even if she came back begging.

It’s called living grief, though in my case, I can now shut that door. In your case, you are still trying to hold all the balls together to support your mum.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink. Ultimately, it’s your mum’s responsibility to sort herself out and be a good mum and a good grandmother. You can’t make her be someone she won’t be.

She does sound depressed. Is she open to support and treatment for depression? I would have a very serious conversation with her about how concerned you are for her.

I can fully relate to this OP…i could have written this thread.

it’s very sad. I found things got easier once I accepted that life had changed and let go of all the preconceived ideas I had about how life would be.

And of course, time is a healer and the rawness subsides and you learn to adjust to the new reality.

Sorry for all the losses you are experiencing ❤️

Thank you for each nd every one of the replies and for sharing your experiences. Was a bit worried id be shot down for even thinking it.

'Felt like being orphaned even though one parent was alive.' That really resonated and the loss of the team and the unit.

Unfortunately she isn't into therapy etc after being brought up in a very stuff upper lip family. After her dad died when she was a teen, the dad was never mentioned again after the day of the funeral. :(
I have just started talking therapy so hoping that will help even though with two under 3 I feel like I haven't got a spare ounce of energy to take a shower, let alone an hour appointment each week.

Desperately try not to 'compare and despair' but one friend has dad,mum,stepmum,stepdad and 3 living grandparents in the mix (just on her side) and helping/loving her kids and I feel like we have almost no one (my grandparents all died before I was 18. Anyone else have similar thoughts ?

I am really sorry for your loss.

As someone who lost my DH in his mid 50’s can I bring some insight to what your DM might currently be experiencing.

At 18 months I was still very much awash with grief and simultaneously struggling to navigate the concept of forthcoming retirement and old age alone.

That just wasn’t the gameplan we had envisaged. The work of building a life together, bringing up a family etc. was fading into the past and we were planning more time for us. Time to travel and relax a little more with new hobbies, a new home etc.

Instead, I was thrown into numerous financial and practical issues, all the time grieving the person I had shared so much of my life with and the future I had expected.

All that at the time when the world, family and friends had started to move on and I felt left behind.

I was a mess emotionally. I got up every day, tried to plaster on a smile, attended to the essentials and just coped minute to minute, day to day.

18 years later, I have a full and happy life. I lost friends during those early years, couples who couldn’t cope with my singledom, but now have many, many, more. I have moved halfway across the country to live where we once planned to live together, go on holiday several times a year with friends and spend as much time as possible with my family.

I urge you to give your DM time. Bereavement is a winding road and some people require longer to come to terms with their loss (the third year was the worst for me). Talk to her about what she is feeling and tell her you are missing her involvement with the Grandchildren. Make plans for the future which involve her and encourage her to feel that she does still have a future to look forward too. Even if it will be different to what she once envisaged.

When you lose a partner you lose a massive part of your past and your future dissolves in front of you. You may find that by helping her to create new plans, you actually end up with a closeness that you would never otherwise have experienced.

My DS has already said DH and I will be useless without the other. That we are like a pair of slippers with one being the left and one the right. It’s a real privilege to have a long loving partnership and not everyone is afforded that but it can totally break the spirit of some forever. I’m really sorry it’s such a sad and difficult time for your family.

Even if your mum’s not open to therapy either or both of you might find Cruse bereavement support helpful in some ways.

I'm very sorry for your loss. Try not to see your mother's pathway to recovery as being bound up in becoming involved with your own children. She may be burned out with caring and understandably wary of being pigeonholed as a widowed woman whose only role in life will be to help with caring for others again.

She may need time to recover her sense of self if she doesn't want to slip into another identity where she feels she only exists as someone who is related to others ie: she's gone from wife and carer to grandmother. She probably needs time to rediscover who she was as a person long before she was connected to others in various ways.