Support For Anyone After The Loss Of A Parent.

[Mummylin]

I hope this thread will be as supportive and welcoming as we have had in the past. It is so heartwarming to see the support you all give each other. Wishing you all well. 💐

MrsSun & SuperF, it's just the way it is I guess. I didn't really have much grief at the start, it's all seeping through the cracks now (yay).

Furry I am so sorry. But I'm happy that you ended up with a good relationship with her. (I say this as I didn't have the relationship with my Dad that I would have liked; he didn't "do" emotional closeness. He would ask me to help sort his computer out and that would be the best one on one time I'd get... but there you go :( )
It is crap you didn't get longer to spend together. So sorry.

Fluffy that's exactly what my Mum's like - she doesn't do emotional closeness at all, it's all about what you can do for her practically (she's like that with everybody) and what you can achieve to make her proud of you. I caught myself thinking earlier that the most supportive, kindest parent died and then felt like an evil person.

I unfortunately and sadly find myself here. My dad died yesterday, suddenly out of the blue so I'm in total shock at present. He was 88 last saturday, so a good innings as one might say, but still a tough loss. I hadn't seen him since march due to current restrictions, though we did speak most days on the phone. My mum died 16 months ago so. Feel completely numb etc as even the registrars office is closed so all abit like in a dream

Sorry you are joining us @Furball, but welcome. I'm sorry for the loss of your dad. 88 is a good innings, but it doesn't make it feel any more of a loss. Someone said to me yesterday they didn't feel my dad was ready to go and he was a similar age to yours and it was sudden too.
Going through loss and all the admin during lockdown is tough and makes the whole thing surreal. When I wake in the morning I keep thinking its just a bad dream and everything (Covid, lockdown, dad's death) isn't real and I can get up and go back to normal life, then it all hits me.
I managed to get the registration done via phone calls and emails, they sent me the death certificates electronically and by post. I arranged the "funeral" by email and phone call as well, meeting the vicar and undertaker for the first time outside the crematorium as I arrived for the short service.
I hope you have some real life support too? I found posting here helped, so talk to us if it helps. We're all in the same boat and posters seem to understand more than some real life friends do.

@Furball what a terrible shock. 88 or not it's easier with a little warning, some inkling that they may be on their way out.

It may be a bit better now but when my Dad was buried a month ago the excess death rate meant the undertakers were really really stretched.

On a practical note - if your Dad's being buried and the undertaker isn't providing pallbearers or a machine to lower the coffin, buy the lightest coffin you can unless your mourners/pallbearers are strong men.

Thank you @User1055 and @FluffyFluffyClouds It does sound like I will be on a similar route so am grateful for your posts. But yes I do have a very good network of friends, a db along with a dh so hopefully between us we can muddle it through.

He will probably be cremated so hopefully that won't be an issue Fluffy. but its good to have the different senario problems in this current climate.

@User1055 agree that it feels like you guys understand what I'm going though more than some friends and in laws

My dad passed away on Sunday. I'm normally emotionally articulate, but right now I'm at a loss when it comes to identifying my feelings, let alone explaining them

@Alderaan there are words for socially acceptable aspects of bereavement but there's so much more goes on that (as yet) is not much discussed.
That confused, blank feeling that someone has shoved you into (the wrong) parallel world.
The feeling where you have no feelings.
That thing where, because they're gone now, you think of the dead person as all the different people they've ever been over time, including a child so young you could be it's grandparent.
I thought I knew about bereavement (have lost friends and relatives and arranged funerals before) but losing my parents has been a whole new experience and I don't know if that was because of our relationship or that I'm older now...

Hi, I lost my mum on Sunday - she was only 55 & had been in relatively good health so we are all shocked to the core. My dad died when I was a child so I feel absolutely alone in the world although I do have 2 siblings (they have a different dad) and I am battling with being grateful that she was happy right until the end (ended up in a coma) and feeling cheated out of more time. I also keep reminding myself everyone dies, this is normal but unsure if this is counter productive. This is my first experience of arranging a funeral etc and as my mum made me executor in her will I feel totally overwhelmed with everything. I guess I just needed to get that out!

So sorry @Foxsakemum your right, everyone does and will die but we on here all lost people far too soon and that's why it hurts so much. So sad that you lost your dad as a child too can't imagine how you must be feeling to have neither so young. I hope you have someone who loves you that you can lean on x

When will it get easier
Each day gets worse or is the same I'm 3 days off my due date and I feel so panicky and stressed and just hopelessly sad

Life really can be a shitter

@Foxsakemum so sorry for your loss of your Mum,

Shock is a normal feeling of grief, I still feel shocked 2 months on. Same as your Mum, she was completely unwell until she developed a headache which was a bleed on the brain and she passed away 2 months later after being in a coma. She was 60.

I hope you manage to sort the funeral etc, not easy in these uncertain times!

@Glitterb my mum was fit as a fiddle then complained of a huge headache one afternoon 12 hours later she was dead from massive bleed on the brain too big for them to try and operate

@mrssunshinexxx I cannot believe how common it is! Since losing my Mum I have heard of so many people who have been through the same thing and their parents are all young.

I don't think it ever gets easier to cope with, I am still angry about the whole thing, about how she was treated in the hospital and that she died from it. I keep thinking about how scared she was when they told her what was wrong, she just asked the doctor if she was going to die and it haunts me still. My Mum never smoked or drank, her only guilty pleasure was coffee and cake, it shouldn't have happened.

@Glitterb my mum liked coffee and cake too :)
She went from severe headache in the garden at home to throwing up in a pool by her feet to arms floppy and no speech within about 30 minutes. My poor dad having to deal with all that then only him being allowed to go be with her in final hours that night due to covid he says turning back before he shut that hospital curtain around her will haunt him forever 😭

It's just unbelievable pain I'm due my first baby on Saturday and she would of been the best grandma in the world she was the most wonderful mum

@mrssunshinexxx your poor Dad, it must have been such a shock for him. It is so horrible having to leave the hospital when someone has passed, you want the world to stop and you walk the corridors utterly numb.

I remember calling the ambulance thinking I was being dramatic, I just couldn't wake her up. 15 minutes waiting for the ambulance was a blur, she had come round by the time they got here and then told them to go away and leave her with some good painkillers! Luckily they blue lighted her to hospital thinking it was a stroke or bad migraine.

Congratulations on the new baby, you will be a brilliant Mum, just like your Mum was

@Glitterb very difficult isn't it feel free to PM me if you want to chat

Thanks I hope so want to do her proud and have a similar bond t what we had x

@mrssunshinexxx I find I have my good days and I have bad days, trying to sort her things out only brings me down to reality. She had so many clothes with tags still on that she had bought for summer, breaks my heart that she didn't get another summer.

I am only early 30s and have lost both parents, I feel isolated as people have no idea how it feels x

@mrssunshinexxx your baby will be 1/4 your Mum, so watching them grow up will be a little like seeing what your Mum was like as a baby and child, when (of course) you yourself weren't born and could not therefore be there.

I don't know if this is common and I feel awful for even thinking it but I wish other people had died instead of my mum I wish my MIL had died, my mum worked hard all of her (far too short) life, paid taxes, raised us single handedly and struggled financially a lot and my mil has never worked properly, has claimed benefits she isnt entitled to & does nothing to look after her health. I know I'm being irrational and I want to stop myself feeling this way. Has anyone else experienced this? X

@Foxsakemum yes its completely normal, I am angry and upset about this. My Mum never got to enjoy a retirement or enjoy what she had worked so hard for her whole life. Makes you wonder what the point is really!

Yes that's exactly it @Glitterb she had a really hard time & when she should have been unwinding in a few years it's all been snatched away from her & us. But I suppose thinking that way isn't going to help & I'm trying to think that she enjoyed the time she had with us & her grandchildren and it is fruitless to wish for more x

@FluffyFluffyClouds that's a really nice thought. Thank you x

@Glitterb @Foxsakemum

You are right people don't understand how it feels I can't imagine losing both but I understand the pain of losing a mum you are very close to so many people have said they have never known a mother / daughter bond so strong and it's bittersweet because it was an amazing relationship but if we hadn't been as close this wouldn't hurt as much.

We have been clearing out bits and tidying etc and I found confetti in a cup that she had saved from the balloon at our private gender reveal just me husband mum and dad it made me sob. First time I went round to the house the material to make my curtain tie backs for the babies nursery were on the floor and I just sobbed and sobbed.
She was going to retire next year my dad had already and they should of been heading into there happiest care free of days full of excitement and new places and memories and now it's ruined for both of them.

I have been having horrible thoughts I basically want it to be anyone but her that had died and it makes me question myself as a human being I love my dad to bits and we are very close too but I can't help think it if had been him and not mum how different this would be. It feels the much bigger loss x