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

@doodleygirl This is me today. I seem to have a huge black cloud on top of my head which won’t move. I’m normally a ‘glass half full’ person and this is so alien for me. Argh! Sending strength and hugs to everyone.

Sending hugs to anyone that needs one today. This is a lovely place to come and share how you're feeling as everybody (unfortunately) gets it.

5 months next week since my dad passed away and I'm just so angry and tired, don't even know what i'm angry about if i'm honest, just keep losing my temper over the silliest things.

Thanks for welcoming me and the replies to my comment. Well, the tears have returned today and I just can’t stop. I’ve gone off to my bed at 5 o’clock in the afternoon, sobbing into one of DMs cardigans and I don’t want to see or speak to a soul 😔

Oh @pumpkinpen- sending a hug. I have just got back from DF funeral and I am an absolute mess. It was a lovely service but I just feel absolutely heart broken now and am sobbing. I just want him back so so badly and I desperately want this to not be happening. It feels a bit real and final today and it’s hit me all over again 😞 everyone was so lovely about my dad and what a warm, gentle, happy soul he was and I know that should give me comfort but it just makes me miss him more

@elmleemum aw sorry to hear that. I'm glad it was a lovely service though. Take the time you need to work through it and be sad. Hugs.

@doodleygirl thank you. My husband and work are supportive but don't feel like anyone who hasn't gone through it gets it. I think you're right that it's never enough time. As @elmleemum said, if your children are grown up that's a good innings really but it still doesn't feel enough. My DF was 70. His health was an issue all his life as he'd had Hodgkin's lymphoma as a teenager and the radiotherapy led to lifelong complications. So I try to be grateful he was here as long as he was.

@pumpkinpen sorry to hear your news and that you're having a tough day. Sending hugs.

Sending hugs to everyone who needs it today

@elmleemumSending you love and a big box of tissues ❤️
I’m glad the service went well and I’m sure your Dear Dad would be proud. Be gentle with yourself this evening and cry as much as you need x

@elmleemum glad funeral went well. That's a blessing. Be gentle with yourself for the next few days.

@pumpkinpen it's lovely that you have your mum's cardigan. It will give you so much comfort in the coming months. I have been wearing my mum's fleece on difficult days and it's really helped me.

Thoughts and prayers to anyone who's struggling.

Another first today back to school without Dad here. I saw a grandad scoop up his granddaughter just as my Dad used to do. I don’t begrudge anyone their happiness but that broke me today. Sending love to you all

Hi everyone - I was wondering if I could join the chat. I lost my lovely mum yesterday and I’m just heartbroken.

@YourVividDuck- I get this. I got out my DD uniform and thought - when I put this away my dad was here 😞 I feel like I have a before and an after life now. @AmpleLilacQuail- I am so so sorry to hear this. I lost my DF 4 weeks ago and it totally is heartbreaking. Everyone hear has been so lovely to me and gets it - please do post when you need to x

Just coming back to this thread. Just feel so much for everyone in similar situations. I lost my lovely mum in May and underneath everything am still just in disbelief.
@AmpleLilacQuail I am so very sorry about your mum. There really are no words. It's just awful. Sending love and strength, please try to take things an hour at a time, I hope you have loved ones around to support you.

@AmpleLilacQuail Hello! I was where you are now 8 weeks ago. I am so sorry for your loss. This is such a lovely and supportive bunch of people and we do all understand how hideous the loss is. Try to keep eating (I only had salad and strawberries for two weeks), stay hydrated and one foot in front of the other. And vent here.

Thank you all ❤️ she lived with cancer for just over 3 years but the end was quite sudden and did come as a shock, even though we knew she wasn’t going to get better. I only had her with me for 33 years and now I have to live my life without her.

I just have this overwhelming guilt that I didn’t say all the things I should have said to her, partly because I’m not good at showing emotion, partly because I didn’t want to upset her and partly because I was just in denial. I keep thinking I should have written a letter and thinking about everything I’d say to her.

But I am trying to focus on the fact that she knew I love her more than anything and I know she loves me. We were best friends. I think/hope this is normal though and just part of the journey. But it’s still difficult not to dwell and feel guilty.

I’m lucky to be surrounded by loving family and friends.

I’m sorry you all know this pain too 💔

@AmpleLilacQuail I'm sorry for your loss, I can relate to everything you say about not saying all the things you wanted to say. It sounds like your Mum knew how loved she was by you.

This is a great supportive thread and a great place to get your feelings out sometimes with people that sadly are in the same club x

Thank you this is comforting to know. I’m sorry you have been here too.

Hi all, sadly I'd like to join the support here too please.
My mum died on 13th August after a diagnosis of cancer 15 months earlier. She was 70 so I definitely feel like we should have had a bit longer.
Like you @AmpleLilacQuail I still feel like I didnt get to say all I wanted while she was alive. We spent her last 3 days together, practically day and night and I was so scared of breaking down and sobbing I couldn't bring myself to tell her how amazing she was. So I said it all to her after, bit late...
In the thick of funeral planning and death admin and 90 % of the time I just feel numb, nothing, which i didnt expect Then get caught by a wave of sadness and feel relief when the numbness returns.

@FunnyCrabDance I'm so sorry to hear that. My DF was 70 too and I can relate so much to what you said. He wasn't an overly emotional person and the week I spent with him in hospital (he was quite well and totally with it, he said goodbye to everyone and sorted his affairs), I also didn't feel able to tell him any of that stuff. I was also so scared of being emotional and didn't feel able to in front of him and my brother. I console myself that he knew how much we loved him as we flew from the UK to NZ the day we heard. Also, when I spoke to him on the phone when he first told me, I completely lost it and said all those things to him. Weird how I couldn't do it in person.

Hope you are doing okay- it still hits me at the weirdest moments.

{mention:kiwiblue}@kiwiblue thank you x I'm sorry for your loss too. The physical distance you had to travel at a time of anxiety and distress must have been so difficult.
My mum definitely wasnt a overly emotional person, due to her own upbringing I suppose. She wasnt tactile generally but those last few days she was comforted by holding hands and seemed to love being kissed on her forehead often.
We'd often talked via text if we didnt see each other in person, as she didnt particularly like chatting on the phone. Unlike my Dad who can waffle and chat about nonsense for ages 😊 so I've got years worth of messages to look back on, we shared the same dark and bizarre sense of humour so reading them back has made me laugh and cry, often at the same time.

I lost my mum yesterday. I’ve been on this thread a while as I lost dad almost a year ago. After dad there was so much to do, helping and caring for mum who was in bad health and sorting admin out for her. I found the caring and managing mum exhausting but now feel lost. She didn’t want a funeral so very little to organise. It was peaceful and at home in the end but the last month she had been very unhappy and I’m sad for that but feel lucky she got to be at home.

@FunnyCrabDance thank you. Flying out there at short notice was awful (woke up to a message from dad, was on a plane that evening). I still have flashbacks to the whole thing. Have never been so grateful to have my brother, as we went together.

My dad was like that, I think it was his upbringing too. That's so lovely that you were holding her hand for the last days and comforting her. I also read through all my messages with dad in the days after as well, it's lovely to have those. Hope it brings you comfort.

@MrsG2025 I'm so sorry to hear that. I'm glad she got to die at home as she wanted though, that is quite unusual isn't it. I imagine you do feel lost, I hope you have support around you. X

Has anyone found bereavement counselling helpful - and how soon after loss did you do it? Xx

@AmpleLilacQuaili have the same question - im a month on and nothing is easing and some days I feel worse. But I wonder if this is still the rawness and should wait for counselling if this persists. I also want to support my mum as she is torturing herself with the what ifs and could she have done more , should she have noticed he was poorlier than he maybe said. It’s so hard to watch her suffer this as well as the loss. She almost thinks she could have prevented it by doing something different and keeps replaying it - if anyone has experienced these thoughts of guilt does this ease or does she need to talk to someone ?

I know I’m not sure on timings. I was told our hospice would be in touch about counselling 6-8 weeks after the death but I feel I need something sooner as I’m just wracked with the guilt.

I was signposted to the charity Cruse after my aunty died, although I never used them. You and your mum might find them useful xx

@AmpleLilacQuailit sounds like we have different reasons for feeling guilt but I do think it’s probably one of the parts of the grief process. Which I have discovered is full of so many parts my mind has gone to all kinds of places recently. Just feels hard to know at the moment what is something we are just going through as part of the process and what might endure and we may need help working through. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever experienced and I just desperately want it to not have happened 😞