Support For Anyone Coping With The Loss Of A Parent.

[Mummylin]

This new thread may help those whose comps have a problem with long threads.
I hope this thread can be as supportive as the last one. It is so uplifting to see the support everyone gives to each other when they most need it.💐

Mother87. Having iPad trouble so it's curtailed me a bit, hope to get it fixed tomorrow !
I can see you are doing a sterling job with your support for others.
I am so sorry for the latest posters, but this is somewhere you can relate all your fears and worries. 💐

to everyone on this thread. Losing a parent is like having the biggest blanket of grief ty thrown over you and you cant get out from underneath it. Its heavy and claustrophobic. Crawling around desperate to find the edge.

I lost my mum in April 2018 3 weeks after finding out she had cancer. My dad died of a heart attack in December 2018. Theres just me now and my own little family. I miss them so much. It's getting easier but I still feel robbed of time with them, they were only in their 60s.

Skinnychip... yes the RE-LIVING... god the re-living of awful awful awful details/conversations/what-ifs... like a film on a loop in my head... and driving towards mums now... i feel numb... and have to remind myself that DM is STILL THERE!!! And i love her... but it was all so stressful for all of us (even though the 'end' was beautiful/peaceful... always 'ok' for DF... but behind the scenes.. the tension/the questioning) I don't want to drive there as DF's GONE - but I have to and she needs me and she's grieiving... but she threw stuff out really quickly (imo) Such turnoil... at the moment...

Shiveringcan't imagine... with your parents - so close together... sorry xx

Hello everyone.

My DM died in January (I came to this thread and found so much comfort, thank you all!) and it is her birthday tomorrow and I find myself in bits. I've been somewhat 'postponing' the big grieving once the funeral was over, and know I've avoided it - not looking at pictures, deliberately moving my focus when she comes into my mind. This week I just keep crying, quietly, privately. I miss her so much. I think it is finally seeping in that she is gone.

[flowers) and big hugs to all of us here. Especially to those in the first grip of the journey. It is hard how the world keeps on turning, when ours has come to faltering halt.

2018sofar...for tomorrow...and every day

Hi everyone, I'd like to join in please. I lost my beloved Dad yesterday at 0521. He was 87 and had been terribly ill. I'm glad for him that he's gone but I'm bereft. He was my best friend and I spent the last year caring for him and about 3 years prior to that helping out as and when.

As well as being best friends we had also been colleagues and we shared so much. Even though I have adult dc who I'm very close to and I'm also close to Mum, Dad was my special person and I don't see a way I'll be able to live without him.

Hi Thighthigh... so so sorry for your loss... (Lost my 89 daddy 20 days ago) I'm not at any stage where I can say it gets easier in anyway - but others tell me it really really does...that this awful awful ache, sadness and longing will somehow - I don't know - dissipate/ease... sorry, it's hard to imagine at the moment but 'we' have to try and believe them I guess - so that we know that there IS a way forward... DM/DD25 and I cared for dad for just a few weeks and it was the hardest thing we've ever had to face... so I cannot imagine how it must have been for you over a long period of time - except to say you should be so so proud of the love and care you gave him

Thigh we know each other from before, I've NCd a couple of times.

I'm so sorry for your loss, I know the immensity of your love for your dad. Big hugs to you and to anyone else in need.

The timeline for me was kind of

Feeling like I'd be knocked unconscious and was on the floor

A few weeks later....feeling like I was conscious on the floor

Months later....feeling like, I can get up slowly and painfully and a little bit at a time.

Sorry if that analogy is bizarre but sometimes the oddest things help us articulate. The most helpful thing anyone said to me in the early days was "it's just shit isn't it".

Mummylin...autumnrose... i'm sorry i'm feeling like a 'fraud' ... am empathising WITH others... but trying to somehow give them comfort...but i've cried day and night and all the times in between. It will be 3 weeks tomorrow since daddy passed, and DM and I were both 'agreeing' that yes it IS just awful without dad, neither of us can see a future with meaning at the moment... and it's DD25's birthday tomorrow and she was so close to her beloved grandad... I 'like' your analogy autumnrose - It sounds about right... I've got daddy's jacket that he wore when fixing stuff around the house - I bury my nose in it every few hours which is excruciatingly painful and feels like a knife being twisted in my heart - so should i stop doing this? It still smells of him... and his trilby is in my wardrobe - and it smells of his brylcreem - I just cannot imagine going on... I don't mean I feel suicidal - and am in no way diminshing people going through that kind of pain... but I cannot see how anything in life will ever matter ever again (and I have 3 adult DC's & DH who I love) but the pain of losing DF seems to outweigh everything else...

Mother and Autumn I'm so sorry you're in the same boat as me but glad to have found people at the same stage of loss for beloved dads.

I feel quite frightened and nervous about things I've said and done. I'm second guessing every move i make, every word i speak. I feel like saying to people - do you still like me, am i normal, do i look strange.

I feel like when you have badly, badly, badly overdrank the night before and you wake up and think - oh no, was i an idiot, what do people think of me.

I'm normally very centred and I've lost my anchor.

Autumn which thread do i know you from?

Hi Thigh (and you other lovelies). I too have name-changed but we have conversed and bantered on other threads.
My 88 year old dad died a month ago today. Still in shock I think, even though it was expected.

Angelina this is the strange thing isn't it? Dad was a great age, the death was expected, his life (for him) had become more endurance than joy. But I'm still in shock.

I feel completely numb at the moment, despite having shed many tears previously. I can function well until something goes wrong, and then I lose my shit completely.
I get silently furious and resentful if others appear to ignore my position, yet irritated if people ask me how I'm feeling as I don't know where to even start. I know they're trying to be kind, but I just feel angry inside.

He was in a fabulous residential care home (that he elected to move into a year ago) and they took care of all the physical and personal hygiene aspects of his last months, meaning that we family could concentrate on supporting him in other ways - not that he ever really acknowledged that he was in the final stages of advanced cancer.
We spent a huge amount of time with him, and those last weeks were very special in so many ways.

Ange i feel really nervy / anxious and right at the edge. If someone passes me the salt wrong I'm not sure I'll be responsible for my actions.

Re banks. M&D have a joint bank account. MUST we tell them? Obviously i will re dwp and occupational pension but why should the bank care?

Re: banks, just before my mum died 2 years ago, because we knew it was coming, they switched all their joint account into my dad's sole name.
Now he's died, we went into the bank (too complicated to do on line as we had questions that needed a human to answer) to see about freezing his accounts and opening up an executors' account and apparently you no longer have to do that. We had control over his affairs (PoA) and could operate his internet banking, so we have been able to continue this, as there are still payments coming in and out from rebates and so forth. Much easier. If that can happen for a sole deceased person, I hope it would be similar for someone with a surviving spouse.

Thigh/Angelina...seems like the (great) age (Dad was 89) doesn't make one iota of difference with the awful grief...he was so so 'vital' driving/cooking/shopping - still wearing his beautiful suits &!cufflinks & hats and things just weeks ago... Is it 'normal' to feel so abandoned - even though I've got DM and am in my 6th decade?

No one has actually uttered the words, "good innings," but I know that's what they think - I'm probably talking about younger people who haven't lost a parent yet.Oh, and my older brother, who often displays the emotional range of a wellington boot, who seemed to think "the sooner the better" by the end as in his opinion he had no quality of life at that stage. Not sure how I didn't punch him, because I think he did continue to have good moments right to the end - knew we were with him and welcomed our visits.

Angelina.... yes, the ever 'helpful' good innings....

I'm glad the weather is shit, it ought to be raining.

Thigh... at least forever x

Mother yes, if there's a blink of sunshine i think "Dad would have loved that" he was such an outdoor cat, he just loved getting out.

I'm 50, i had my Dad all these years but i was always his baby. He used to say "oh, it's the wain!" (Scottish) every time i walked in.

I was getting out a tea towel yesterday and one of his hankies came out instead, then the tiniest little feather landed on me. I wrapped it in the hanky and put it in my keepsake box.

I'm thinking of a piece of jewellery made from his ashes. I know I'm a lunatic but if i could walk around with a bone i would.

Oh yes, hankies. My dad was never without a freshly-ironed one about his person. I found a whole pile in his drawer when we were sorting out his stuff and I brought them all home. Dh went to use one and I didn't want to spoil it.

Indeed, hankies. My Dad had so many that I'm still using some of them 15 years on, you can't beat a man's hankie when you really need one!

Been remembering my Dad this week, as I've lost a friend who cared for me a lot when he died.