For Anyone Needing Support After Losing a Parent. Very Supportive Thread (November 2023)

[Crunchymum]

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

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/bereavement/4493231-For-Anyone-Needing-Support-After-Losing-a-Parent-Very-Supportive-Thread-March-2022?page=39&reply=130357515

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

@Sohereitissuddenly I’m sorry to hear that it was traumatic at the end. Thank you for your words. Sending strength.

@HalfasleepChrisintheMorning my mum went downhill quickly at the end, she wanted to go and died peacefully and for that I’m very grateful. So no its not wrong to wish it was over for them.

@HalfasleepChrisintheMorning I'm so sorry to hear it's so hard at the moment.

When my mum was going downhill and suffering I said: I can can cope with anything except this. I can cope with losing her if it means she doesn't suffer.

Then after she died I thought what a foolish thing I'd said. I wanted her here more than anything no matter how ill.

Now 8 weeks on I can see both are true: I wish it was 8 weeks ago and she was still here. But I'm also so relieved she is no longer suffering.

So you are not wrong to feel how you do. You want what he needs but it's going to be so hard for you.

Don't judge your feelings just recognise them as all part of loving him.
That's what I'm trying to do xx

Does it ever get better?

Are you ok? I’m sorry for your loss.

I don’t know if it gets better, as I am currently sitting by my Dad’s bedside in hospice. I had to come in as he has sudden onset confusion- terminal delirium.

I think time probably eases it but there will always be times when something triggers a memory and it’s as though it were yesterday.

I am so sorry to hear about your dad. It is such a tough time.
Both my parents died quickly one after another two years ago, both unexpectedly. I know it gets better from the very early days after their death. But since then it has not.

Hello, just came across this thread. I lost my mom and dad both to cancer in their mid 50s three and a half years ago. My baby was only 18 months old/almost 2. I miss them so much and mainly plod on because of my boy. Love to you all.

Have you tried any grief counselling?
I had counselling after miscarriages found it helped.

I’m just not coping today. I know it’s been less than a week since my mum died but I feel floored by it this afternoon.

@ernbe04 just read your post. Mid 50’s is very young. At least my mum saw my dc into their teen years. Sending

I agree mid 50s is no age- I’m 47 and my Dad who I am currently watching in hospice is 79.
I feel very grateful that he walked me down the aisle and was the most fantastic grandpa for 12 years.

It was my Dad's 68th birthday this weekend. 6 weeks since he died. My son (8) in particular is struggling with missing him. They had such a lovely relationship, much closer than I ever was with my grandparents.

My Daddy died today in hospice. He was 79. It wasn’t as peaceful as I hoped, he was peaceful and then vomited just before death and then died before we had chance to clean him up. Horrific.

@HalfasleepChrisintheMorning I’m so sorry it wasn’t as peaceful as you’d hoped. I think we are often sold the idea that people just ‘slip away’ but actually dying is hard work and it’s not always like that.

my own Dads end was also horrific. I thought I’d never get past those moments as memories. I didn’t believe people who told me it wouldn’t get better.

But I’m a few months down the line and I can promise you it won’t always feel like this. That time was a mere moment in a long life, all your life, and the memories of other times with your lovely Dad do come back in.

I found it helpful to think I simply wasn’t having that being my memory of him. Not my brilliant, lively, funny Dad. No way.

love and strength to you, and take care of yourself xx

@HalfasleepChrisintheMorning I'm sorry. My Dad didn't pass peacefully either, he was coughing awfully and delirious for the final few days. I wasn't there at the very end but my mum spent his whole last day thinking he'd gone and then he'd gasp again. I found it messy and noisy and not the peaceful drifting away we are expecting.
I hope you can cancel any plans and just let yourself feel however you wish to feel for a bit x

This is the worst pain I have ever felt. When does it get easier?
Funeral director tomorrow

I’m four months into my new life without my dad. I’m having more bad moments than good.

Is it normal to have worse weeks?

He died very suddenly and it was all quite traumatic to watch really. I find myself remembering he’s gone and it hits me.

Life charges completely doesn’t it x

@HalfasleepChrisintheMorning I'm so sorry your dad's death wasn't as peaceful as you'd hoped for and that you're in such a raw state with the pain and grief.

My mum died two months ago and I am still in pain but the raw edge has softened a little. I have good days and bad days, good moments and bad moments. I'm writing this in a good moment when I can envisage future happiness for myself. I don't always feel this way but I do right now.

At first the images of my mum dying kept replaying in my mind but this isn't the case now and I'm able to think of my mum in other parts of her life and not just at the end.

@Piscesmumma1978 you're ahead of me as my mum has been gone two months. I feel for you that you're having more bad moments than good. You ask whether that's normal - I don't think there is a normal when it comes to grief, it's so personal and individual. So if you feel it, it's normal.

What you wrote - about it being a new life without your dad - resonates with me. I think it's going to take me some time to get used to the new version of my life where on that side of the family I only have my stepdad and not my beloved mum.

It makes me so sad when things pop into my mind that I want to ask my mum about and now I never can.

I guess it is normal to question if you're going through the usual process. Its been about 6 weeks since my Dad died and I have weepy moments and feel very flat, but mostly ok. I think it's still yet to fully hit me. I've got another funeral to go to later this week and that's going to be strange I think.

@HalfasleepChrisintheMorning my Dad died in January and it wasn't the peaceful end I wanted for him. I have tried very very hard to focus on all the good memories I have of him as I don't want them to be erased by what happened. I think the good memories are beginning to win out over the bad but it'll be a long process.

Massive unmumsnetty hugs to you x

I’m four months in from losing my mum. She was very young and I had just had a baby and my sister was heavily pregnant. It does get less raw and there’s a feeling of ‘getting used to it’ which is still shit because you don’t want to get used to it. I don’t cry everyday anymore and sometimes hours pass where I don’t think about it.

Me and my family have a thing where we’ve said ‘it’s worse the first time, then it will get easier ’. So doing things without my mum where she would have been there like going home or where we would usually go together. X

@AlboRH I'm just catching up with some posts on this thread and saw it was your dad's birthday recently. That must have been very tough for you all.

I hate it that we all have to go through this.

Hi all.
Sorry for all your losses and that you all find yourselves here. My mum died suddenly 3 years ago of a heart aneurysm. My DC are 7 and 4. (So 4 and 1 when it happened). I work full time in a demanding senior role.
Day to day grief is becoming a more embedded part of my life but when I have a grief wave it's so hard. My dad is in his early 70s and beginning to have health issues which make him more childlike and needing my support. However he's also dating - all of this is fair enough but both his health issues and him moving on I find very grief triggering.
All I can think is - I wouldn't need to take on all the stress and worry of my dad's health if my mum hadn't died, and I also wouldn't have to process complicated feelings about him dating.
If my mum was still here I would also have her support day to day with the DCs, school worries and another place to just 'be'. We were so close, and despite a supportive DH and being lucky in many ways, there's still nobody who cares unconditionally about the little things that happen.
I miss her so much - it just feels so unfair when it hits me. Solidarity to all who are going through this.

Funeral today.
It went really well and I kept it together to do a reading, was very proud of myself as I know he would have been.
Come home and none of us can stop crying, it suddenly feels much worse.

My darling Dad passed away on Sunday. I am numb and empty, I think I am in shock. I am only 29. He will never get to meet my future children. I can’t believe I will never hug him again.

I was there when he took his last breath, just me and him in the room, in a wonderful hospice where he was treated with such dignity and respect for the last few days of his life. It was so peaceful and he was not in pain. Prior to that he was in hospital for weeks, it is too traumatic to think about his hospital experience at the moment, I am not sure how to even begin processing that.