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

This hangs in my hallway i think its s nice message and read it often

@Ttc42nearly43 Thank you for your kind post. I don't have much RL support no (hence being here I guess). I also have two teens with ASD (I'm their Carer hence being so isolated). I think the selfish part of my howl of anguish re my friend is that, when she goes (she is 75 so I know she will go sometime but not NOW please...) is that she takes such a chunk of my life too? She has known & loved me for 30 years. Like my Partner, she will leave an unfillable hole. Selfish :(

My equivalent to your print (which is lovely) is kintsugi - the Japanese idea of mending broken crockery with golden glue. So, you can see the joins but they make the item more not less beautiful. I'd do a link (but I dont know how)

I’m sorry I’ve not been around much, it’s all been too much. But I’ve been thinking of you all.

I chose Dad's final resting place this afternoon.

Possibly the oddest responsibility that I've ever had.

Thinking of everyone else dealing with this

@medianewbie

Sending you strength and hope that your friend has many more years with you.
I like the Japanese idea of mending broken crockery with golden glue this represents grief on so many levels

Popping on to send love and light to everyone here. Grief is one of life's most common sufferings but can be so very isolating. I was always glad to have this place to express my thoughts.

I know Fathers day is fast approaching so I send extra love and support to those without thier dad's.

Here's my most precious quote. I saw it a few days after my mum died and I have it printed and framed. It brings me such comfort.

My sweetest little middle DC knows this off by heart and says it to me whenever I have a wobbly moment.

It's my birthday at the weekend and it marks the anniversary of the last time I saw my mum (3 years ago. Although she didn't die until the September. Fcuking Covid!!) My birthday always feels like a huge marker in the passage of time I've not had my mum.

Birthdays (hers and mine) and New Year always highlight so very starkly and unavoidably just how much time has passed. Just how much life has happened without her. It's hurts. I think it will always hurt.

Thinking of you Crunchymum. My birthday is looming and it marks the day my dad fell last year and went into hospital, he died three months later. He’d been totally independent and strong prior to that day. I don’t think I’m going to like my birthday ever again.

That's beautiful @Crunchymum
Thank you for posting it. I am sorry for your loss xxx

Omg I missed the first half of your post. That’s a lovely quote. I’m trying to focus on the good things, the things I say or the mannerisms I have because of him. That he’s a deep, ingrained part of me and always will be.

@Crunchymum

I get how you feel and agree it will hurt forever. As we are going for quotes this evening, those that have stayed with us i take comfort in this quote "the greater the love the deeper the loss" its not an exact quote but its my interpretation of a similar quote.

We loved our parent so much ❤️

We laid Dad's ashes to rest yesterday, in the sunny churchyard under the shade of a maple tree. It was very quiet, dignified and simple - just as Dad would have wanted. We had a few drinks to toast him in the garden afterwards and it was a lovely afternoon.

All I wanted to do this morning was ring him and tell him all about it

Aw @Badger1970 . Sounds beautiful.

I feel the need to tell Dad about so many things. I'm finding this time v hard. It's nearly three months since he died. I live away from where I grew up. I didn't get much support or acknowledgement from work or friends really. Nobody asks how I'm doing much. And it's there all the time of course. It weighs in us, doesn't it.

I kind of feel like although life carries on and I have to get in with being a parent and doing my job, it's like carrying a big weight around all the time. Sometimes you can bear it and carry it, sometimes it makes everything feel harder. And nobody sees it.

On top of this, of my two closest friends where I live...one has just been diagnosed with Cancer and the other is moving. I feel terribly alone.

@Sohereitissuddenly im sorry you’ve got so much going on and feel alone. I know how you feel. There’s always an ear/shoulder for you on here.

@Sohereitissuddenly grief is the weightiest burden to carry round. It's now 5 months nearly since losing Dad, and there are very rare odd days when it feels lighter but most of the time it's overwhelming. It can make you feel very alone because only you know how you're feeling, and it's your loss.

You're among friends here

It doesn’t seem to get any easier. I still cry myself to sleep most nights. I’m ok when I’m busy in the daytime, it’s just odd little things that catch you out but as soon as I get in bed at night I’m straight back there at the hospital with my mum in her last few days.

I am in A&E with my husband, which is worrying enough. We’re right opposite the bay dad was in last time and I’d no idea it would end up with him dying. It’s bringing back a lot of bad memories.

Oh @Honeyroar . Hope you and your husband are ok. I never want to see that hospital again where dad died let alone the ward. Thank you for your kindness earlier when you've got so much going on.

And @Badger1970 .

@Cococrab I know what you mean. I get flashes all the time of the last days in hospital.

They’ve moved him onto the ward that dad died on. I cried walking past the side room that dad died in. But I sometimes think it’s good for me to have to face things that have sad/dad reminders. They hurt a bit less the second time. I’m trying to focus on the good memories rather than the sad ones if I can.

Fathers day tomorrow, funny thing is that when Dad was alive we never really did much for father day, he wasn't really a 'fathers day' kind of person. I sent him a card, gave him a ring and we would have a nice chat. However I'm really feeling it at the moment :(

I noticed the thread in Active and popped back. I haven’t posted here for a long time, since I got a bit upset about a thoughtless comment someone made and it made me feel I wasn’t welcome here any more, but I was very much a regular for quite a long time.

I lost my beloved Mum almost 3 years ago and @Crunchymum you were a great comfort - we were on a similar trajectory at the same time. So I just wanted to send all my very best support to everyone who finds themselves on here. It feels completely obliterating at first but gradually, very gradually, things begin to clear. It will never be the way it was before, but it will be bearable. @Cocopogo I’m sure that doesn’t seem possible right now, and my heart goes out to you as I had similar flashbacks to mum’s last hours, and still do sometimes, but the terrible wrenching stab of emotion does calm down and recede.

Funnily enough, Crunchy, it’s my birthday very soon too. I was just looking through some photos and chanced on one of my mum holding me as a tiny baby. She looks so young and vigorous and happy. That’s how I want to remember her, not as the desperately frail person of her last years. But I too still think ‘oh, I must tell mum that’ - I think I always will.

@Honeyroar hugs to you. It’s very, very difficult having to be in hospital so close to that side-room. You are being very brave.

Love to everyone missing their mums and dads.

@Honeyroar my husband had a hernia repair in hospital this week, and if he needed to stay in, it was going to be on the ward where Dad was admitted when he was diagnosed. I'd explained this to our kids who were more than happy to go in to see him but thankfully there were no beds and he was kept in overnight on the surgical unit. I'm not sure how I'd have coped. I'm so sorry you're having to deal with this.

Tomorrow fills me with dread. I'm going to try to avoid social media and al the posts of people with their Dads.

I'm doing better than I was but after the last few days I've needed him, I want to tel him all the things he'd have given me advice on. I need his words of wisdom. I'm really not sure how you're ever meant to get over losing a parent it's utterly heartbreaking.!

Thinking of everyone missing their Dad today.

Although it was my Mum I lost nearly 3 months ago today has hit me really hard. Probably because we did the whole big family meal thing and there was a beloved person missing. I’ve taken to likening this grief to walking through a minefield. You never know when you’re going to step on something that knocks you for six, that you would never have thought of. Much love to everyone feeling fragile today 💐