I really want to go home. I really really want to go home.

[JacknDiane]

But my home isn't there. The council have got someone else there. My parents lived there 50 odd years, then mum moved to sheltered housing. But the family home with the nice garden is what I miss. And mum pottering in the garden. Dad is dead so long I struggle to remember what he did. But mum comes back easier, shes dead nearly 15 years. I was a late baby, my siblings are so distant from me, I was always really an only child.
My kids now are grown and moved away. Not near me at all now. Im happy for them,they are leading a young 20 somethings life. As it should be. They were here today for 2 days but both gone back now. I haven't got any family apart from them and dh. Dh is good but he doesn't understand how I feel. His siblings are in this city, although he doesn't see them much, they are still here.
When my dcs leave I dont know when I'll see them again, they both have lots going on. Im glad for them. But I feel so bereft when they go. Ive had a lump in my throat all day. I mostly stayed home when they were small or worked around them. That's unpopular on here but it was what we all wanted. Ive got friends, a job, I keep busy. Im not sat here waiting for someone to knock on my door, I plan things and keep occupied.

But when the dcs have been here then they go, I just want to go home, to the house I grew up, with my mum and dad there. Them just pottering, watching telly, going a walk. Nothing exciting, just the foundation of my childhood and young adulthood. I just want mum to say its ok, you'll miss them but you'll see them soon. Just reassure me all is well. I know it is, but I haven't been reassured by my parents in at least 20 years. I looked after mum after dad died. I became her mum. Its just what happened.

I just want to go home and sit with them. And drink tea. Then come back here and get on with my life.

But I can't and its overwhelming sometimes.

This was a very moving and beautiful post. Sorry for your grief, op.

Thank you for reminding me of that beautiful poem. I remember studying DH Lawrence for my English A level back in 1985 and that poem always made me feel so sad for him.
And now, with both my parents long gone, I feel that same longing for the past.

I want to go back to the careless hapy days when I would sit an sew with my grandmother. Or she would read to me. Then we would have tea in lovely porcelain cups. But my grandmother died in 1979. The memory of it brings me weeping to my knees.

This might seem wild but I immediately thought of this video. Limmy is a comedian but some of his stuff is different in a really thought provoking way and this particular sketch shows that many of us are experiencing this at some point.

Life is a journey that always moves forward, unrelentingly so at times even when there are times we want, need even, to slow or stop and it’s so very overwhelming sometimes. Press on we must. Just know we all feel it too, you are not alone.

(((❤️)))
I could have written your post - down to the big age gap and basically growing up as an only and the council house that I can’t go back to as the council demolished it and there are a load of new builds on my old home, my old garden, my parents pride and joy. It would be so nice just to be able to pop in for a couple of hours. So much has now gone.
My mum had dementia, she spent increasing amounts of time talking about her parents and siblings and often said she wanted to go home. I guess we all just want to retreat to a place where we felt safe and looked after, a place where it all seemed to be much simpler. I’ve been feeling this a lot lately, really miss those two.

Ah @JacknDiane your post is v sad. My parents are alive but i am often overcome with a powerful nostalgia to step back into time to when i was a child & my fabulous grandparents were alive. I long to see them one more time.

I spent a lot of my childhood with them.& often tiny things jolt my mind to those days.

Their house (my favourite place in the world as a child) is long sold. I never thought i"d sleep in their town again. But a few years ago i unexpectedly had to stay in a hotel in that town

The room looked out onto almost the same view as i had woken up to so many times before. It was wonderful & deeply unsettling

So much has happened in those years. Good & bad. A lot of sadness.

I too have a great life & dc in their 20s off doing their own thing which i am v proud of

But i get it

The Welsh have a word for it - “hiraeth” - it means a deep, emotional longing for something lost, often a home, place, time, or person that you can’t return to.
I know exactly how you feel, you just want to slip back to a moment in time and spend them with people you have loved and lost.

These kinds of feelings are painful but they make us feel alive too - and remind us to cherish what we have in the here and now, because nothing stands still.

My mum is very fragile now and I was just thinking today of how she was in my childhood & early adulthood. I’ve always been so close to her and even though she’s still here, today I longed for my old mum - the one who was fit and well and capable. And so pretty. My mum…

I love this poem by Charles Causley - it evokes that sense of longing for the past and what is no more.

Eden Rock

They are waiting for me somewhere beyond Eden Rock:
My father, twenty-five, in the same suit
Of Genuine Irish Tweed, his terrier Jack
Still two years old and trembling at his feet.

My mother, twenty-three, in a sprigged dress
Drawn at the waist, ribbon in her straw hat,
Has spread the stiff white cloth over the grass.
Her hair, the colour of wheat, takes on the light.

She pours tea from a Thermos, the milk straight
From an old H.P. sauce-bottle, a screw
Of paper for a cork; slowly sets out
The same three plates, the tin cups painted blue.

The sky whitens as if lit by three suns.
My mother shades her eyes and looks my way
Over the drifted stream. My father spins
A stone along the water. Leisurely,

They beckon to me from the other bank.
I hear them call, ‘See where the stream-path is!
Crossing is not as hard as you might think.’

I had not thought that it would be like this.

I’m crying so hard reading this op and I totally understand, you are not alone 💓

Also very moved by all these posts.

I also get it OP. Dm moved out of our old family home last year, into a care home. The grief of selling my old home felt overwhelming. I have kept as much as I could, too much, but just can't let it go as its all my memories - my old cuddly toys that my parents kept, paintings, ornaments, my dad's old briefcase.

I'd love to be able to pop round and see them, sit on the kitchen stool, listen to my dad humming and chat to my mum. I had such happy, easier, times there.

Dm has dementia and the person she mentions most often is her mum, not me, my siblings or df. I wonder if that's her mind wanting to go back 'home'.

I am grateful for the happy memories, but losing them is so hard.

"Death is Nothing at all" by Henry Scott Holland is a poem I read at my Mother's funeral and "Do not Stand at my grave and weep" is a poem I read at my sister's funeral. Both are very sad but lovely poems. When I look up at the night sky, every time I see stars, I think of my beautiful sister.

Well said!

I feel for you OP. It's a long time since my parents died too but sometimes I miss them overwhelmingly. Stupid things, like I always used to buy my Mum Turkish Delight at Christmas and when I see it in the shops it makes me cry. My Dad was a Scout Leader and when my DS was made a Patrol Leader my first thought was "Dad will be so proud". I actually started dialling my childhood home's phone number and then remembered that he'd been dead for a decade. It breaks my heart that they didn't see my DD get married or hold her baby. Mum would have loved that.
But time moves on and I have many happy memories. What's the saying - grief is the price we pay for love. I don't have any answers sorry but you are not alone.

Oh gosh this has touched a nerve with me🥲my mum brought me up as a single parent.she was always working,if she wasn’t she and my stepdad would have friends over for meals and I would be upstairs.grandma and grandad literally raised me tought me how to tie my laces ride a bike,grandma always picked me up from school and came to sports day.in my mind grandma was my mum.she passed 17 yrs ago and very often I wish to god I could go back.and bake scones and sit and watch telly with them.much love to youxxx

If love one more family get together like we had as teenagers. Sadly we lost too many to recreate now and those left are too old to cope with a big get together like we did in the 80s, 90s. Still see all but not together.

that's so true! I am grateful for the unconditional total love I got and still feel, decades after their deaths. It's the essential building block for adult security. Even in the happiest of partnerships each adult consciously chooses each other and could always opt out, whereas the bond between parent and child is deep and enduring. Even when it's problematical. It's why surrogacy is so disturbing

Just remember you are those memories for your children too. They will one day long for the time when they were at home with you and those times. You will be the grandparent your grandchildren remember. That is the way of life in that we all slot into each other’s stories. I do think we get hit my random grief. My grandad dies about 30 years ago and sometimes I get very teary thinking about him but not about my other grandparents weirdly. But I do have fond memories of them.

I can relate too. Do you have any letters from your mum or photos to look at?
I recently read through all my mum’s letters that she sent me when I was at uni 30 years ago and it was very comforting. We weren’t demonstrative but the letters showed how much she loved me and missed me when I was away.

I have very limited family beyond dc and dh as well

There's a big difference between feeling nostalgic and sentimental and feeling very low to the point of being depressed about your missing home and childhood @JacknDiane.

You've not said much about what you're doing now but if your children are busy with their lives, what are the options for you visiting them? You don't need to wait for them to come 'home' to you.

I moved hundreds of miles away from my family after uni and my mum would get a train and come and see me for a day at a weekend or when I had a day off work. She'd stay at a local hotel for a couple of nights.

Everyone's experiences of childhood are different. I wasn't especially happy at home as a child because I was an only child. I felt lonely. My parents were also controlling (because they loved me and were overly protective) and I couldn't wait to leave home. They are still alive in their 90s and I know they did their best. I will miss my family home when they are no longer there but it doesn't hold the same emotional pull as yours did.

On the other hand my mum feels like you and often asks me to show her the house she lived in on street view.

Your old house was just as my Mum says 'bricks and mortar'. What really matters is your memories of those times there and your family. No one can ever take those away from you. But it's unhealthy to live in the past and yearn for things you can't have. This is why I still suggest talking this over with a professional, even if it didn't help before.

Look at your life NOW. Don't waste the years you have left by being sad over something you cannot change. Be grateful for the happy times and do whatever you need to in order to create more of those now with your children, work, hobbies and friends.

Another one here moved to tears by your post, so beautifully expressed. And to all the other posters sharing their own.

Hiraeth for me relates to people no longer here and the ordinary moments. I didn’t live near my parents but we FaceTimed a lot and I vividly see them and hear on my screen, my Dad having brought my mum a coffee for our chat. Someone up thread talked about life being a series of losses, I struggle now with feelings of guilt that I didn’t appreciate what I was lucky to have at the time. I have to try hard not to dwell as the present is what will make whatever new memories for however long I have left.

Hugs OP you are most definitely not alone

What a beautiful post. You should try keeping a journal. I think lots of us feel like that sometimes.

This is a bit much. I’m not sure how you deduced that OP is “living in the past” and “feeling very low to the point of being depressed”. In fact she seems to be busy enough and getting on with her life. Surely it’s natural to be reflecting on one’s life, especially at big times such as kids growing up and living their own lives.

There are many, many posters (including me) on this thread who can empathise with her words - we are all human and it’s okay to feel grief even years later. Please don’t try to pathologise OP and suggest that there’s something wrong with her just because her grief isn’t like yours.

OP, I am another one who was weeping reading this thread. I miss my dad terribly and although life keeps me busy and occupied, that void and emptiness is always there. It’s knowing that nobody else loves or cares for me the way he did, and no one will again. There was such a feeling of safety and comfort knowing that I’m someone’s daughter, and the world feels a lot lonelier now without him.

It’s been incredibly comforting to read all (well, most….) of your posts - there’s such power in knowing that I’m not alone and that there are so many others feeling this. ❤️

I haven't said there is something wrong with her or 'pathologised' it.

I did say she might find counselling would help as she seems stuck, emotionally. You don't have to be ill to have counselling.

I know some of my friends feel wistful over their childhood homes but the way she writes makes her sound as if she's still grieving and not coping with her loss or her children leaving home.

@DaffodilLill i agree, I completely get what you mean (and I live abroad, away from my mother and my childhood home is long gone too).

@JacknDiane my home has a lot of decor that is similar to my mum’s decor as I was growing up, maybe some bits from yesteryear around your home would you make you feel better? I’m not even joking, last week I got a tea pot from vinted my mum used to have. I love it.