anyone is grieving for a parent

[2shoes]

I know there is an existing thread where lots of lovely people have supported each other through what is a horrid time, but as I come up to the 2nd Christmas without my dear old Dad and SM, I would like to somehow move on and I suppose help others through this as well as helping myself.
(hope that doesn't sound crap)
so a bit of background
My mum died when I was 18 after years of ill health.
so I got a SM.
we weren't close close but got on well.
she became ill and died a 1 1/2 years ago, then my darling Dad got ill.
he died 6 months(or there abouts later)
I miss him every day.
and thank the lovely Mumsnetters who have helped me through this.
but i can't post on the old thread,
it takes me right back there, so I am hopig a new thread, will get us all talking and allow new posters to join in.........

first one for me with out my mum

doing my shopping on line as , went to shops , was so hard as so many people and couldnt cope with the fact im one less gift to buy this year for my mum ..

going to be very hard , have to keep strong for my DC .

re- live the days leading up to mum passing all the time..if id known more , would i have said more ..a very cereal time ...doctors ...cloak and dagger answers ..when im sure they knew ..what the outcome would be ...they should have said i think as i would never have left her bedside

sorry for going on .

thanks Lilo, and its good to know that it can get better. x

so sorry to hear so many people are going through this.
I do so miss my dad, I feel that I have no one in my corner iynwim.(dh is obviously )

Went for a growth scan today and desperately want to call my Mum all about it - how huge the baby is and that it's breech.

Anastasia, my Mum is the same...quite needy and can't seem to sort anything for herself. If her Sky goes wrong she phones me to tell me. It feels like she wants me to sort it out for her; I haven't even got bloody Sky!

My Dad died in August last year of cancer. I burst into tears today thinking of him and missing him sooo much :(

My dad died suddenly just before my wedding in 1999 and my mum died on 18th December last year, 4 weeks after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Although I was closer to Dad losing Mum was so traumatic - I don't think I will ever be the person I was before and I just can't get into Christmas at all.

My mum died suddenly, 13 years ago when I was 21. She was my mum, my best friend and a lovely gran to my ds1.
I'd love to say its gets better, but I'd be lying. It is different for me though in that while we had always been so close, I didn't speak to her for the last 6 months of her life. She disapproved of my decisions, and while I now know she had mine and my sons best interests at heart at the time I didn't believe she did.
I still have conversations with her. I still pick up the phone to call her when I have some news etc. Yet I can't go to her grave.
I've been told I'm still at the 'angry' stage of bereavement. But i'm not angry with her for dying, but with myself for casuing her so much pain and not being able to apologise.
I know my grief has caused untold problems for me and my boys, not least in my inability to parent them as I see my mum as a parent.
I miss her, I always will, grief doesn't get better over time, rather you learn to deal with it better.
There is another thread on here about odd habits. I nearly posted on there. I listed about 10, then I read them through and thought yes, yes, yep, mum did all of them. They weren't mine but hers, but I do them. Does that make sense?
One thing which we do each year on Christmas day is the boys open their stockings together (they get a book/colouring book, small lego toy and a chocolate orange), whilst I have a shower, have some toast and coffee. The kids moan and I smile 5 more minutes, just like she did and say more minutes. Because I now know that those crucial 20 minutes, having a shower and some coffee and toast kept her awake from the frantic present wrapping she did at 3am in the morning after spring cleaning the house when the kids were in bed. As I type this now I'm smiling because she did it, and I do it, and I bet you any money my kids will do it too!

What a lovely thread - although lovely feels like the wrong word. You know what I mean. It's just nice to "meet" others who know what it's like.

My mother died of cancer when I was 16 - a long, long time ago. She's still very much around though, in the form of DD - argumentative, feisty, prone to depression, clever, witty. I'm a much calmer, slower person - something somewhere has skipped a generation, which is lovely.

I was sort of estranged from my father at the time (they were divorced), and moved into lodgings at 16 - but we became very close later on. He was my rock - and then he dropped dead, completely out of nowhere, aged 65 (7 years ago). I thought of him today reading a thread about Ireland (where I grew up) - he would have had so many opinions, and would have delighted in stirring things up :o. I still miss him, every day. I miss the concept of having a mother more than I miss my mother, at this stage - it does change. I wish she'd met her grandchildren.

loubeedoo - I had that anger, too. I was a horrific teenager, and was furious with myself for what I put my mother through. It wasn't until I had my own horrific teenagers who put me through hell that I realised none of it mattered at all; it never changed my love for them. And realising that that's how my mother would have felt was a great sort of closure for me. It was like a weight dropped away from me - I lost the guilt.

My dad died suddenly 14yrs ago yesterday - he was only 50. It was the day before my brother's 21st Birthday and as my parents were divorced we were classed as next of kin.

I vividly remember spending my brother's birthday in the Registrar's office sorting out the legalities, followed by a surreal appointment at the funeral home

That first Christmas was understandably awful - my mum & my stepdad had already booked to go away for Christmas and although they said they would cancel, in our shock we said she should still go. In hindsight I really wish we hadn't as I needed my mum there and part of me is angry that she didn't just cancel her holiday (sort of take charge in a mum - like way) We had already arranged & booked Christmas dinner for us & dad in a restaurant for the day itself and I can still feel the emptyness of pushing my food around my plate and looking at the empty place setting while families around us were having so much fun.

Even now, all these years later I still grieve for him -in fact it hits me more often now I have my DDs, He would have been a fab grandad :)

Sorry about the rambling Christmas day story - still hurts more than it should after all these years...

Hassled I know what you mean.
My boys are little buggers. But I wouldn't change them, for anything, I may have tried to leave them in a supermarket now and then, but thats another story!
I catch myself doing the mum thing (you know swearing when you are a teenager that you wouldn't say or do it but you can't help repeating it with your own kids).
For instance, when they bang their knees etc, is it bleeding? can you move it? Well ok then it hasn't dropped off so calm down and stop screaming while I put half a bottle of dettol on your knee (slight ocd tendencies about hygiene run in my family).

Five years tomorrow since I lost my lovely, lovely mum, and I still think about her and talk to her and long for her every single day. She never had a chance to be a grandmother - and she would have been the best in the world. My son looks so much like her, though. He asks about her a lot and can't quite get his head around the fact that she's gone...last time I bought flowers for her grave he asked who they were for, and when I said 'My mum' he got massively excited and said 'Are we going to meet her??' They'd have adored each other and it's so unfair that they never got to meet.

Gosh, I'm crying here reading some of your posts...I so need to cry, need to grieve properly. I haven't been 'allowed' to as I've had to hold my family together; my Mum, my Dc's, look strong for my brother...I don't feel strong, I feel utterly, utterly weak, but I can't grieve and if I did start to, I don't know that I'd be able to stop.

I hate Christmas and I hate new year and have done for years and years. Last Christmas I didn't even put my tree up and I didn't put a single card up...my Dd's birthday is boxing day and none of her cards went up either (I'm glad she didn't understand). No birthday cards went up this year in my house...it's just empty now Dad has gone. Ds didn't ask about his cards going up...he misses his Grandad; he died 9 days after Ds's 11th birthday and the funeral was on Ds's first day at secondary school.

Sorry :(

• I'm just empty now Dad has gone.

solo

"Five years tomorrow since I lost my lovely, lovely mum, and I still think about her and talk to her and long for her every single day."

That about sums it up for me too, except it's seven years. We were very close, the three of us - Mum, me, and my lovely Nan whom I lost a couple of years before that. I miss them both every day; no-one loves me the same proud, protective, unconditionally supportive way they did. They would and did drop everything for me and my DCs. I don't like the feeling that there's no-one a generation 'above' me to turn to when weary and indecisive. And they were good company - the best - they were fun!

So often I pass places we used to go on walks together and the thought flashes up 'Mum would have loved to come here with me today.' And I dream about them so often - cruel when I wake up and remember.

The only thing that 'helps' is passing on things they said - advice, funny stories they used to tell, little bits of practical wisdom, even kitchen equipment :) of theirs to my DDs. In that sense they live on, they made a difference, and nothing can take that away.

Un-Mumsnetty for all of you who feel the same.

I lost my dad 20 years ago and my mum 3 years ago, both to cancer. As an only child I felt so alone, there is noone to share memories with at all and I worry that I'll forget My dad didn't get to meet any of my dcs, never got to be a grandad, he would have been fantastic as was my mum.

So many sad stories. :(

Solo - have you considered concelling at all? I can't remember from our old thread. You need to be able to let this all out, for your sanity and for your family. If you'd prefer to talk offboard about it (Im coming to the end of my stint) message me.

Take care.

xx

Thank you for starting this thread. I lost my Dad in May 2007. I really feel for those of you who are supporting a bereaved parent and having to set aside your own grief as I experienced this. My Mum died in June 2008. That Christmas I was numb but Christmas 2009 was awful. I just felt overwhelming grief.

This year I feel a bit better but it is lovely to share with others who find Christmas difficult. I dread spending it with my husband's family who are all still together - it sounds selfish and churlish to say it - but being with people who still have each other is so difficult. I have found counselling very helpful. My counsellor says these feelings are perfectly natural and the situation accentuates your loss. Fortunately we live near, so have decided to opt out if I can't stand too much time there.

It's great to share with others who feel the same. All I can say is that it does get slightly easier with time and accepting your feelings is very important. Our society is hopeless at acknowledging grief and bereavement so you can start feeling you should be over it. I guess you never are.

Whitecloud, I feel the same about DH's family at Christmas. I love them all very much but cannot spend this Christmas with them. We have compromised and are going there for Christmas tea and the evening. Even so, I know I'll find it tough, especially as it is Dad's birthday.

LilRedWG - it's good to hear that someone else feels the same. I have found the build-up to Christmas worse than the day itself - harder for you because you are thinking of your Dad's birthday as well. We should carry on supporting each other. This weekend I only went to my parents in law for one day when other relatives came. Couldn't fact Saturday and Sunday. Think you have done the right thing to avoid Christmas It's a relief to talk to others and feel less alone.

thanks for starting this, 2shoes. I haven't posted on the old thread for ages - can't really face it if I'm honest

For those of you that don't know: My dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer the day before Christmas eve of 2008. He was initially given 3 months but thanks to some fab treatment, he made it till January of this year.

This will be my first Christmas without him - even though we didn't live very close and it's been YEARS since we actually had a christmas together, I miss him ringing up to ask what the children want, I know I'll miss ringing him on Christmas day, with all the children fighting over who gets to speak to him first.

I dreamt about him again last night - in my dreams he's always alive and it's awful to wake up in the morning and know that he's really gone.

I am dreading Xmas as I said 1st year without Mum, it is her birthday a couple of weeks before Xmas, then Xmas Day, then New Years Eve (I hate that), then my birthday and my mum died the day after my birthday. What a rotten 6 weeks to get through.

2nd here without mum. She died last June when my youngest was only 5 months old. I miss her everyday and am dreading christmas. I think last year I was just numb.

I was always thinking I would ring my parents and then feel that awful lurch of grief when I remembered they weren't there any more. Two and a half years on I think my subconscious has finally realised they aren't there so have stopped thinking "I must ring Mum and Dad". Hope this is a help to anyone with a more recent bereavement. At least we know that other people are finding Christmas difficult. It is because you are supposed to be happy and are convinced everyone else is. This thread is such a help. I say to myself in just over a month it will all be over and that seems to help.

Mum died at the end of May this year and I can empathise with so many of the posts on here. I feel I haven't grieved properly - there just doesn't seem to be time, somehow.I have a young family, including a DS with SN, and life just seems to rush on. I've just started a meditation course (mindfulness) and immediately after doing it the first time I experienced the most vivid, lovely dream about my Mum, which was very comforting as I feel I can't tap into the good memories at the moment - just her illness and particularly her death.So maybe the meditation will give me the space and free my mind to grieve - I hope so, as it feels as if I'm stuck in a kind of limbo.

I'm also finding it quite hard to deal with my Dad's grief, which has become much worse as winter has approached. They were together 57 years and Mum was his only partner - he has never lived alone .

Christmas will be a quiet time for us this year I think - Mum was always the centre of Christmases and it will be so hard without her.