For Anyone Needing Support After Losing a Parent. Very Supportive Thread (March 2022) )

[Crunchymum]

I hope no-one minds me starting a new thread, the old one is almost full.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/bereavement/4352163-For-Anyone-Needing-Support-After-Losing-a-Parent-Very-Supportive-Thread-September-2021

As always lots of love and strength and support to you all xxx

@HattieMacTattie

So sorry about your Mum. COPD is awful. I was like you, I lost my Dad on the 24th September and I don’t know why I posted. Or I didn’t know at the time. But it helps in a very small way at least, to share how your feeling. I do know how you’re feeling, as does everyone on here and everyone has been wonderful to me since I joined so I hope you stay on here and also feel supported. I was very close to my Dad and I miss him terribly. I feel in such a strange upside down part of my life right now. People ring and ask how I am, friends I mean. And it makes me so mad because in my head I think, how do you bloody think I am. I’ve lost my Dad. My heart is broken. But you only understand if you’re going through it, or have been through it x

@iklboo - Hi there

Words fail me when reading your post. I am truly sorry for your loss. To lose one parent is devastating, heartbreaking and so so bad enough. But to lose both, and so close together, I can’t imagine the pain you’re in right now.
You’re in the right place if you’d like some support or to share how you’re feeling. Please do come on as much as you want to, as much as you need to because someone on here is always there to read what you’ve said and offer some words of comfort and support.
Do you have any support from other family or friends? It’s such a dark place to be. We are all i it on here. I lost my Dad on the 24th September and it was completely unexpected and sudden out of nowhere. I still can’t believe he has gone, I miss my Dad so much that I could open the window and just scream some days. My mum is also broken without him, married 47 years.
Were your mum and Dad unwell? Was it unexpected? x

@LucyintheSky21

Thank you so much.
All I can do is take one day at a time.
Back at work and it's hard as everything is 'normal' for everyone else but I feel so lost 😞

@HattieMacTattie

It’s early days for me as well. I am just the same. I feel angry that everyone else is getting on with their normal lives while me no my family are heartbroken and we always will be. As a few people have said to me recently, you never get over losing your mum or your dad but you come to terms with it. And the coming to terms with it can take a very long time. I still think my Dad is coming back and it’s only been 5 months 😪.
One day at a time for each of us.

@iklboo I'm so sorry for your losses

@HattieMacTattie I'm so sorry for your loss. I also lost my mum 2 weeks ago and wrote on here and wondered why. But I've found it provides some small level of comfort for me at a time where I feel like I'm the only person in the world going through this. I also started back at work this week and have found it helps keep my mind focused on other things even if it's only for 7 hours. Sending you love & strength

Hello everyone,

I'd like to join too, for a handhold and a big hug. My wonderful Dad died just before Christmas, shocked us all, including him. He had so much living left to do, he'd only just met his first grandchild (because of all the lockdowns), it was absolutely heartbreaking as he so wanted to be an active grandad and he just never got the chance.

My grief feels like a physical wound, every so often I think it's scabbing over, but then I'm flooded with memories and it opens afresh. It is early days, but I feel like I cycle through the 'grief steps' every day, it's not linear like I thought it would be.

Anyway, big love to you all walking the path with me.
xx

@HattieMacTattie

I just wanted to reach out I miss my mum terribly too it's just heartbreaking isn't it. The person to u need the most in life is your mum right that's how I feel.

I just passed by a very difficult few weeks first birthday of mine without mum, first anniversary of mum's death. I still feel like almost can't believe it that it shes gone forever. How did that happen when she was just 66 years old. Still can't get my head around it all.

Am sorry that your mum suffered this is very difficult to see you just want them to get better. I fought with my mum in hospital for 9 days until she passed it was the worse 9 days of both of our lives. I thought I could help save her by pushing the drs trying everything I could to get the best treatment for her but she lost her battle against kidney failure which was secondary to sepsis caused by a leg infection. It was all so fast all so unexpected.

It's very early day for you sending you strength no one wishes to be on this path but here we all are ❤️

@ShineBrightly

Firstly sorry that you have lost your dad. I know how painful it is to loose a parent suddenly and unexpectedly. You are right there is definitely not fixed "stages of grief" you can feel all different stages in one day. I recall the physical pain of the first 4 or 5 months it's very very difficult in the earlier months. I hated hearing people say that you cope better in time but you do eventually but it's a very slow process.

Would you like to tell us a little about your dad of your feeling up to it. I lost my mum a year ago and I feel that part of me died too on that day. I was heartbroken and still am but functioning far better than this time 6 months ago.

My thoughts are with you x

@ShineBrightly

So sorry for your loss. I too lost my dear Da before Christmas (it was the 24th September) and it was sudden and totally unexpected and like yours, he had so much life left to live. He was healthy and fit and well, active and busy, hobbies and interests, grandkids who adore him and a wife and two daughters and so many friends who all adored him. I feel your pain. I thought that I had been doing ok and ‘getting on’ with things not too badly but this weekend it all came crashing down on me and I’ve just fallen apart. I cried so much yesterday from first thing in the morning to tea time. We even went to the cemetery yesterday where my Dad is buried as I thought it would help. I went with my mum and my husband and our two boys and it just obviously wasn’t a good day to go. My emotions are all over. I don’t know about you, but with it being unexpected and a shock I wonder if it does take a very long time to come to terms with that before you can start to grieve properly. For me, I just can’t bare to think that I won’t see my Dad again. My heart feels like it breaks more every day. People keep saying one day at a time and that it’s still very early days, but it feels like it’s getting harder xx

@Ttc42nearly43

Hiya, how are you? You’ve not been on for a while and I’ve been thinking about you.
How is your Dad? xx

@LucyintheSky21

Hiya yeah I checked out for a bit there then I couldn't find the new thread. Am feeling pretty low mum's anniversary of her death was on 5th March I still have days where am thinking wft did that actually happen and wondered how am meant to go through the rest of my life without my mum. It just shit isn't it. I also had a birthday another day I want get past as quickly as possible.

My dad is doing pretty well right now he's been to three AA meetings. It's his 77 birthday today am truly thankful for this but everything and I mean everything is over shadowed with us all missing mum. She's left a huge hole in my family.

My mother in law's partner is still hanging in there it's amazing he's fighting hard but he's definitely gone downhill over the weekend am not sure that there's much time left he's saying that he wants to go now. I keep thinking about what it's going to be like when he actually passes away and the funeral. I know it's not about me, he has daughter's and my heart is breaking for them. I just keep seeing us all in the church and at the graveside I have no idea how the hell am going to keep my shit together.

It's so difficult I feel like am surrounded by death and loss it's pulling heavily on my heart and soul. I wish that we could go back in time when my mum was here, when your dad was here. There's so much I want to say to my mum but largely I want to tell her that am sorry that I couldn't save her and am sorry if I lost patience with her sometimes. I did my best but it wasn't good enough. Jeeze I just was to be wrapped up in her arms and for her to tell me that everything will be ok. My mum's skin was so soft and she was always so warm.

How are you holding up? I feel like a slowly falling apart again little by little x

Sorry to see some new members on this thread, it's a thread you never even glance at, until you have to if that makes sense?

@iklboo my heart goes out to you. I really, really hope you have some real life support? You are being tested to your absolute limits here and you will be hurting more than you ever thought possible. Please reach out to anyone and everyone who can help you at this awful time.

We are hear to give you a virtual cuddle xx

@Ttc42nearly43

It’s so nice to hear from you. And I don’t mean because of the situation obviously, I just mean because I’d not seen you on here for a bit and was wondering how you were. Happy Birthday to your Dad, I know it won’t be a happy birthday and I completely understand that because for you and for him, your mum isn’t here. But it’s great to hear that your Dad is doing ok. To be honest, reading your post is just like how I feel. I thought I was doing not too bad but it’s all just crashed down on me this lady couple of weeks and again I feel like I’m falling apart. Literally everything in our lives like you say, exactly as you say it… is overshadowed by my Dad not being here. This weekend has been truly awful and I don’t know why. I was literally just making the boys beds yesterday morning and couldn’t stop the tears and i was a mess all day. I miss my Dad so much and nothing, nothing is the same. I feel like my family is broken. The birthday’s coming up etc and anniversaries like you say, they’re all dreadfully sad occasions now. My mum isn’t coping well either. I just feel like things are getting more and more painful as the weeks go by.
I’m sorry about your mother in law’s partner. I can understand why you feel surrounded by it, I think losing someone really is the hardest most painful thing we ever have to go through and there’s no textbook to guide us. I just feel like I can’t bare it anymore without him. I know that’s how you feel about your mum. And some days I feel so angry about it, I feel some days like opening the window and just screaming as loud as I can xx

Thank you to everyone who replied to me. It's Monday morning, and I've had my first sob of the day over a picture of my lovely niece's smile, knowing how much joy it would have given my Dad to see it. Sorrow and anger, over and over, why him, why then?? Just why really...

@iklboo my heart brakes for you, to lose both in such a short space of time. No words, just a big virtual hug, and I hope there's someone irl that can help in whatever way you need.

My Dad had a big, big heart. If there was a way to help someone, he would find it. Always curious, never judgemental I find myself hoping to embody these traits too, in whatever way I can, to keep him alive in me. I don't think, or want, to ever reach a point where he is less a part of my life. I love him, that love will never leave, and I hope I end my days feeling the love he had for me.

@LucyintheSky21 with you about a big scream. Wish I could too without scaring the neighbours!

@ShineBrightly - We could scream together! xx

@LucyintheSky21

Your last post really struck a chord. Any parties and get-togethers my Dad was at the centre of the action! He WAS the party for a lot of his friends. It's inconceivable that he would miss any gathering, I just can't imagine going if he's not there, it would feel so hollow. Still feel like he'll be back soon.

@ShineBrightly - Your lovely Dad sounds like mine. I never truly realised how much my Dad was the centre piece of our family, the Head of our family. He had more friends than even I do, or my mum. More hobbies, more interests. Things he did and went to every week with friends. I just cannot believe it has happened. 24th September and I still can’t believe it. I feel like he’s gone somewhere and he’ll be back soon. I said that to my mum and she said she’s the same. When she’s pottering around the house doing jobs etc, she just thinks he’s at a friend’s house or out with a friend. I think it’s the only way I’m getting through each day.
I’ll tell you something though…. And this is for @Ttc42nearly43 as well. I don’t know if anyone reads but reading is something I love and I find reading at the moment especially good as it takes my mind off Dad even if it’s just for a few moments. But I was reading the book I’m reading at the moment. It’s not a sad book. I don’t watch or read anything remotely sad now or triggering. But in the book, a man had written something about how he felt when he’d lost his wife and when I read it, it just felt so accurate:-
‘Like someone reached in and took out my heart and my lungs and told me to keep living. Keep waking up, keep eating, keep putting one foot in front of the other. For what?’
Sorry for the quote but I read it and it just felt so accurately put. Trying to carry on with life when you’ve lost your mum or your dad, it’s ‘that’ hard to do. xx

@LucyintheSky21 yes, absolutely that was him

I am a big reader too, my reading life has taken a knock, I just don't have the concentration rn. That quote is so accurate though.
I think my answer to the question would be 'For him'. He invested so much love, care and attention in me, both through my childhood, and a decent part of my adulthood, that to not 'keep putting one foot in front of the other' is unthinkable.
I do it to honour him, the sacrifices he willingly made to give me the tools to make a happy life for myself - resilience, kindness, compassion, humour.

I find myself drawn to memoirs from people who have suffered loss at the moment. I read C.S.Lewis 'A Grief Observed' not long after it happened and so empathised with the rage at death. Just starting 'The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, 'a single person is missing for you, and the whole world is empty. It's helping me for now.

I will head back to fiction at some point though I'm sure! For escapism nothing beats a Marvel film for me atm :)

Thank you all for your kind words. It's been very hard. They were both quite frail with COPD but still lively. Dad fell & broke his hip but they'd done the replacement. The day before he died we were discussing his discharge care plan. Then I got a call saying he'd taken a turn for the worse. He was gone by the time I got to hospital.

Mum went downhill rapidly after that. Stopped eating properly & looking after herself. We tried everything we could for her. My auntie popped round & found her blue in the face and breathless. They took her to hospital on 17 February and she got worse & worse. Ended up on 15 litres of oxygen & struggling to get her sats above 50. I made the decision to withdraw the ox

*oxygen & let her go. There was nothing more they could do.

Dad was 74, mum was 71. I'm an only child and mum only had her sister left & her sons. Then her youngest took his own life on 8 Feb. One wrecking ball after another. So I'm dealing with all the admin, funeral stuff, house clearance etc with a bit of help from my cousin & DH when he's finished work.

Some days I feel like I'm howling into a hurricane. I still think 'oh, I've not messaged mum today'. It's hard.

Oh gosh @iklboo that is so very much to have on your shoulders
I wish could shout, scream, yell and, yes, howl too xx

@iklboo

My goodness how horrific trauma after trauma am amazed that you are still standing although you are probably on autopilot. Life can be unbelievably shit and cruel. Are you able to talk about what has happened to your DH and other family members? x

Ttc - yes DH has been brilliant, so has MIL. They've let me talk, cuddled me & tried to keep my spirits up. I can talk to my cousin as well because he's been through it with his dad who died of cancer three years ago, and his brother a few weeks ago.

At the minute I'm 'busy' doing everything so holding it together. I'll be able to grieve properly once all that's over with. Work have been brilliant so that's one less worry.

@ShineBrightly - Tell me a bit more about CS Lewis and ‘A Grief observed’, please. Did you find reading that helped in any way? And how depressing is it? I’m a big reader but I’m avoiding anything deep or remotely sad. If it’s one you’d recommend I’ll order it. I wonder if it would help my mum… What are your thoughts? xx