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

It's our third Xmas since our mum died and it's just not the same without her. We're trying to find new Xmas routines but it never quite flows the same. Might try to go away instead next year

Fifth Christmas without Mum and somehow that's worse.
Not paralyzed by grief, no, but time takes her away from me so remorselessly.

And having neither parents nor children, not even a pet now, Christmas is just us now. It's a lot more relaxed now we're not driving round the country like blue arsed flies, but the day has a hollow aspect to it.

We have not one but two friends in hospital this Christmas and it's bringing back memories of Mum's last weeks in hospital. Can't be helped. I guess it's the nature of living life that any experience is seen through more and more layers of related memories.

Four years for me. I keep thinking it’s three but because she died towards the end of the year, the first Christmas was just a total blur of me being completely dazed. I don’t think I even noticed it was Christmas actually.

@FluffyFluffyClouds your situation is like mine. There’s just the two of us and the rest of my family is a fair distance away. They didn’t make any effort to get physical presents to us, although we usually exchange gifts and I’d bought things for them and gone to some trouble to make sure they had them in time. It all seems a very long time since I loved Christmas and made lots of preparations, planning things with my beloved DM. I feel as though I’ve finished with Christmas in my life now. It feels very sad and rather bleak tbh.

First time posting although I've been reading this thread since August.

My lovely dad died suddenly and unexpectedly on 1 August. He was, as far as we were concerned, fit and healthy, even if he was 86. We thought he'd go on forever - or at least another 5 year, if not 10 or 15 (his aunt lived to 102). He was still "tall", articulate and funny, if that helps get a sense of the man.

He'd had a UTI but the dipsticks were clearing and he'd had a pacemaker fitted last year (went in to check out an irregular ECG and had CD a pacemaker fitted the same day ). He had an Apple Watch which would've warned me (I live 25 minutes away but he's got good neighbours I could've alerted) but he was not wearing it when he went through to his kitchen to make his morning cup of tea and was discovered by his neighbours a few hours later (who'd agreed a signal with him that if he hadn't opened his bedroom curtains by a certain time.... ).

He wasn't long back from 6 weeks in SA when he died

It would've been his 87th birthday on Christmas Day . In a funny way, the day itself was not upsetting as he was so often in South Africa in recent years with his lady friend (he was originally South African and reconnected with an old Uni friend after my mum died over 11 years ago and who'd known mum and dad at Uni and knew they'd been a golden couple) or with my brother who lives in France, so we were used to him not being around. But both dh and I are feeling the hole more now: we'd have shared stuff with him, whether by FaceTime or by WhatsApp.

And we can't look forward to seeing him again when he gets back from his gallivanting in SA

I know he went the way that he wanted: quickly and without fuss. But it still hurts

Hi everyone

I was okay on Christmas day as I didn't always spend it with family (though I did last year). Boxing day was harder as I was at my siblings and my mum would normally be there as well. I really felt her loss. I realised how much the loss is in the little things like knowing she would have texted to tell me what's on TV.

We got through OK. My sister bought me a necklace that’s a clear stone with wings either side in the shape of a heart. If you shine a light through it it projects a picture of my mum onto the wall. It’s so lovely and close to my heart as it’s on a chain.
im exhausted and glad it’s all over though.

peace to everybody and in particular @DurhamDurham xx

Been a bit absent from this thread. But I read all your posts. Had my Dad’s funeral just before Christmas. I had been ill for a week or two before and alone in organising the funeral so it was a lot. Too much almost. But got through it. Christmas was tough. First with no parents. I have a sibling who did not want to meet up, or even as much as wish me or the kids a Merry Christmas. But I have a partner and school age children and we had a Christmas for the kids.

Are any of you executors or administrators of your parents estates? 2024 will be the year I have to sort that out. Selling the family home etc, going through my parents things. Just seems awful.

Yes @Mepop I am. I am absolutely dreading it. I’m not sure what to do really about all the “stuff”. Take my time and reminisce about everything (a lot of which I couldn’t remember without the prompt of seeing) or just to even send my husband in and start taking clothes etc to the charity shop. I’m scared things will smell like my mum and I just don’t feel I can go there.

My mum rented so we had a month to clear her house from the day she died...she was a hoarder...it was an absolute nightmare emotionally and physically.

I was on the other thread under a different username.

I lost my darling Dad from liver cancer in January this year. I was going for a walk the other day with my dogs, walking somewhere different and I had a moment of just feeling utter peace. It kind of took my breath away as I haven't felt that for such a long long time. And it felt really nice to feel.

To everyone recently bereaved, it does get easier to live with. Go easy on yourselves, keep talking and do whatever feels right to get you through it. My bereavement counsellor talked to me about "wintering", where you kind of go into hibernation and just do the bare minimum of sleeping, eating and breathing but anything else is just too much. I feel like I am just starting to emerge from my wintering.

@FlyingCherub There's a beautiful book called Wintering by Katherine May. I would hugely recommend it. It's not about bereavement exactly but it does relate to grief and periods of life where we need to retreat and heal.

I've woken up today so angry and mad at everything. I'm crying tears of frustration because of something so minor.
Because of the holidays we still are no further forward. No post mortem so no death certificate. It's just the endless waiting.

Sorry to moan, hope you're all doing as well as can be expected and I appreciate the kind words you've already said.

Thank you @FlyingCherub I really do need to hear that and I will investigate that book @Sohereitissuddenly. I’ve found some comfort in Donna Ashworth books over the last month although invariably each poem makes me cry. I just can’t be this unhappy forever. I can’t not find joy in things. It would be such a waste. And yet.
I’m so sorry @DurhamDurham. That is just extra stress on top for you and add such uncertainty and unnecessary delay when the whole funeral planning and event is a necessary hurdle to get over before grieving can become more private. Nothing is minor- small irritations are just all straws on the camel’s back.

@Catsolitude I've got two Donna Ashworth books and I'm getting some comfort from them too. I follow her on Instagram and it does seem to help somehow.

My mum died in November and I feel awful that the year is coming to an end. I feel like I'm leaving her behind in 2023. Does anyone else feel like this?

I empathise with the waiting. My mum's death was complicated due to hospital failings and we had to wait ages for a PM and then an interim death certificate. Nothing could be done until we had that which piled on extra stress. My thoughts are with you.

This is EXACTLY how I feel. So sad about the world moving on, the earth continues to turn and it's a brand new year and my mum will forever be 'stuck' in 2023. And I feel so guilty that I'm leaving her there and moving on into 2024.

So sorry that you're also feeling like this. It's such a painful feeling that the world is continuing into the new year but our loved ones are stuck in 2023 :( I'm sure your mum wouldn't want you to feel guilty and would want you to be happy, but it's no consolation I know :(

My Dad died in November and I am dreading midnight- the thought of a year in which he never lived is dreadful. I couldn’t go to bed the day he died as I wanted to hang onto the last day we had him. Had to wait until after midnight

love to all of you. It’s so tough xx

I felt like that the first NYE after my mum died. It was really tough.

Over time it's gradually changed to feel like I still carry her with me through my life. I hope that in the months and years to come you will start to feel that way too. 💐

Very much so! In my case, it was my brother (I've been lurking on this thread although it is about parents).

When I've needed to explain to someone, I've been saying "earlier this year, my brother died". I hate the thought of getting more distant from his life and our memories together as time goes on, and having to say "he died last year" starting tomorrow, and eventually "he died a few years ago", and so on.

I lost my beautiful mum suddenly in November too. I’m spending NYE with my father as I’m worried about him as his grief is daily compared to mine that feels like a constant sadness if that makes sense.
I can’t think too much about the New Year as it upsets me to leave her in 2023, as it hasn’t been long and I can’t process even the loss yet (yes I’ve cried in despair) but I can’t let her go if that makes sense and another year won’t make a difference to my world, unlike everyone on the outside of this.

I felt/feel like that. My mum died in mid December 2022. It was surreal. We had a brilliant holiday in the October where she got covid and didn't recover. I'm struggling with the concept that this is the 2nd Christmas because the first was so strange. She'd purchased all our gifts already so it was like she was still involved even though she wasn't there. This year I felt like DS's advent calendar was counting down to the date. The whole season has been tainted for me. I hope it's not always like this.

A little poem for all of us