For Anyone Needing Support After Losing a Parent. Very Supportive Thread (September 2025)

[Crunchymum]

A follow on from the nearly full old thread - https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/bereavement/4932881-for-anyone-needing-support-after-losing-a-parent-very-supportive-thread-november-2023?page=40&reply=147297138

I hope this thread continues to be a place of warmth, support and shared wisdom.

I have lost both my parents in the last year.
The last one just before Christmas.
3 years ago I had youngish, fit parents and now terminal cancer has robbed me of both.
I quit my job when my mother was diagnosed as terminal (she was my best friend) but I am just really sad my young children won't know their amazing grandparents.
It was all so sudden that I am also in the "third circle of probate hell" as it was referred to above! There is a business that I am now having to run with staff/customers that overnight I suddenly have responsibility for. My dad was an IT wizz (but I am not) so everything is based on individual platforms that no-one understands (his co-writer died a few years ago).
Overnight so many more people now rely on me getting it all right and it is just so overwhelming to be the person in charge. Outwardly I appear to be fine but inwardly I am screaming and in my dreams I am a teenager still able to delegate decisions to my parents! Last night they were getting my food in a buffet restaurant in Spain (they spoke Spanish). I dont sleep well now.
I am so busy trying to stay on top of everything that I cant even start to mourn.
I am working with a lawyer but most things he can't help me with and the complete mess of paperwork from the last 3 years (I understand why) compounded by the deadlines on everything (taxes/VAT returns/compliance etc.) mean that I am very angry at the situation I have been left with which makes me also feel very guilty.
Plus you add in a language that I dont speak and it is A LOT.
In fact is taking everything I have (and lots of coffee) to just get through each day. I just want to call my mum and complain about it all - as she was the only one who would understand - yet she is the one who has put me in this position!!

I’m so sorry @firsttimeoptimist . That sounds really tough and unfair. I can emphasise with you. My dad left me a really difficult probate and a bomb site of a house to empty. Three years later and I’m only just on top of it, and then my mum died and I’ve got to start on that estate. I feel like I never got time to grieve, something else comes hurtling at me and I have to get back on my feet and deal with that. It’s like swimming at the top of a whirlpool and only just stopping yourself going down, but having to swim and swim to stay there.

Huge hugs to you. I think you are doing amazing, even if it don’t think you are. You’re proving how strong you are. I hope you have someone who you can lean on once in a while, and that you get a break somehow sometime soon. 🌺

@Gingercar I have just resolved to never leave my children in this position.
I know that grief is going to really hit me later. My children provide joy and I try hard to try to forget and just be with them in the moment.

Lots of love to all starting this really shit journey.❤
It’s nearly a year in for me now and I’m struck by how hard and low the feelings of this time last year are.
This is a great thread for sharing and I’ve really valued having a space to be with others who get it x

Hello and hugs to you all,

Ive been ok for most of Jan having lost Dad in November. Keeping very busy and generally feeling alright.
Then last night, I don’t know what triggered it, but I just found myself sobbing (during dinner; poor DH was rather taken aback but very supportive!). I suspect I’ve bottled up a lot of feelings and they just bubbled over.

I’ve just started sorting the bombsite @Gingercar. Similarly to you, mum died 3 years ago then dad last year and I’ve got her stuff as well as dad’s to wade through. I feel heartless chucking so much away, but despite mum’s insistence that it would ‘come in useful,’ much of it never did.

Your description of swimming on top of the whirlpool struck a massive chord with me. That’s exactly it.

Love to everyone in this crappy situation 💐

I pop on and off this thread since my lovely mum died last May, and I'm always so sorry to see new names, hear new stories of everyone else's dear loved ones. I feel for us all trying to navigate this shift, there is absolutely nothing like it.

For me, I can't believe it was last year, 9 months now, it feels so recent as there is still so much to sort out. I still think every day, oh it's late afternoon, time to call mum for our chat.

Like you @madameimadam I have moments when everything just bubbles up until I can get the lid on that box again. Very unhealthy I know but with other family issues I can't allow myself almost the luxury of giving in to those feelings right now.

I think it's easy to say, or for others to think, you must be "over it" by now when a certain time has passed, but I don't think that's true, you maybe just learn to create a new normal.

You never really lose them as they're still with you and part of you in so many ways and I try to hold onto that as a comfort where I can.

It's so difficult. Sending hugs to everyone posting here and thanks to everyone for posting with support and similar stories, it's all helped me immensely.

So sorry to those who've recently lost beloved parents. I lost my lovely dad a bit over three months ago now, and I've visited this thread on & off.
It's true what they say about grief not being linear.
I found myself getting very emotional again yesterday.
This morning (a few minutes ago) I felt moved to look back on some old WhatsApp chats with my dad. I couldn't face it before. Needless to say it's hugely triggered me 😢
Oh how I miss my wonderful dad. So so much.
I feel so sorry for those of you still at the funeral stage. It's so hard.
Lots of love to all on here, whatever stage of grief you're at ❤️

I thought I was feeling better today , did some gardening and the sun came out for a few hours . Grief then reared its ugly head and the reality I am never going to see my beautiful mum again hit . We are still waiting for her death certificate and a date for her funeral . It’s been 10 days since she’s died but feels like an eternity.

I’m sorry to all the recent posters. I am 6 months on but going through a phase of really missing my dad and it’s all I can think about 😞 I’ve had better days and times in between but grief is definitely not linear and the waves are so true. I also think people are shocked when I say that’s what I’m upset about as if I should be over it but I feel like the missing him has only just started / it was all shock and raw sadness to start and now I just really really miss him 😞 sending love to everyone on here x

Today my sisters and I sorted out our parents clothes and shoes. Everything else was more or less done but this is the thing we had dreaded most.

we lost dad 4 and a half years ago and mom 9 months. Dads stuff hadn’t been touched as mom wanted it left as it was.

we played music and laughed and reminisced and it felt ok. We took some items each, some were thrown but most we took to charity

so Im sitting here about to go to bed and I suddenly feel overwhelmed with sadness and grief as if I’d just lost them
I feel like it was rushed and we will never have that moment again
I feel a physical pain
my sister feels the same too.
i don’t understand why we didn’t get upset while we did it but it’s just hit me now
it feels surreal and I can’t stop weeping.
did anyone else experience this?

@hippy13 I actually haven’t really sorted my mum’s home yet and we’re nearly at a year. I sorted a bit and tidied around. I have taken some bits that are special to me and have given a few bits to friends and family but the bulk of it is to do so you’ve done well to get this far.
I think our bodies and minds are amazing somehow they give us the strength to get through really hard stuff without breaking and then we break when we have the space. Maybe this happened here? It sounds like you and your sisters did a tough job that had to be done but you made as ‘nice’ as possible but the pain is there and you feel it now. I also think that if I was your mum and had been able to see you sorting I would have been pleased and comforted that you worked together and reminisced etc, it sounds like you honoured your mum and dad but it’s so tough. I’m sorry you had to go through such a hard day xx

I said to a friend of mine yesterday that I didn’t feel ‘adult’ enough to deal with all of this - and I’m in my 50s! I read on another thread about the shock of a bereavement wearing off and it did for me, just before Christmas (5 months after Mum died). I literally spent about 3 weeks trying not to cry all day, every day. But I’m 7 months in now, we’re starting to sort her estate and things are, I don’t know, calmer? Until they’re not and something triggers me. Thank goodness for this thread.

My dad died ten years ago and that was a huge loss for me but losing mum has no words big enough to describe how I feel. I think it’s because I looked after my mum after dad’s death . There’s one thing really upsetting me about a week before she died I went into the nursing home and she was crying saying she felt depressed, I think she knew she was going 😢

@Tolkienwasrighti know what you mean about not feeling old enough! I wonder if you ever do? I’m nearly 50 and I’ve never felt so nostalgic about my childhood and reliving lots of memories that haven’t surfaced in years. I guess we all feel like a child again when a parent does no matter how old we are.

Hello all. I’m checking in - Day 8 since my dad died very suddenly. Funeral is tomorrow. Thinking on you all, at all stages. Xx

Sending lots of love @forgivingfiggy for tomorrow. Thinking of you on a very hard day x

@forgivingfiggy good luck for tomorrow 🌷 only just had the phone call for the appointment for the death certificate today . Funeral home said it’s not like to have funeral until 2nd week of March , no idea why it’s so long .

@forgivingfiggy I hope your Dad gets a good send off tomorrow. My darling Dad's funeral was 10 days ago and I was actually full of adrenaline all day and determined to give him the best service we could. I found the huge turnout really comforting and my brother and I are so proud of how it went. I was very flat and weepy the day after though. x

Good luck for tomorrow @forgivingfiggy I hope you find comfort in friends and family.

@dmango
you made me cry but thankyou for such a lovely helpful post

It's 2 years and 3 months since my mum died and over a decade since my dad but I still cry over them and think about holidays we had. My dog is close to the end now which is stirring all kinds of grief up because she was there with me when my dad passed and was with me when I visited my mum in the nursing home and at her funeral. My parents loved my dog and on one holiday in 2014 we all walked around for ages trying to find a dog friendly cafe as they refused to have lunch without me amd my dog. I miss both terribly and now my one constant- my beautiful dog- will soon be gone too.

@forgivingfiggy thinking of you and yours today. Take lots of care

It’s been almost two weeks since my beautiful mum died, it’s feels so much longer . I have had a variety of emotions and it’s now starting to sink in she’s totally gone, I was thinking about all the days she had spent on this earth she would have been 88 in August and I felt grateful I had her with me for so long . Finally got a date for her funeral Friday 6th March she’s being buried next to my dad in a beautiful meadow in the Welsh countryside. Busy with ideas of how to decorate the wooden hut where the remembrance will be , thinking of a woodland theme, natural flowers. Taking Werther’s originals to give out as that was her favourite sweets 😊

Her resting place with my lovely dad, his old ticking clock which has been on my mantelpiece for ten years since he died stopped the day after my mum died. I like to think he was counting down the hours until she returned to him ❤️

That’s lovely. A truly marvellous meadow.

I still haven’t scattered my dad’s ashes from 3 years ago. Now Ive got my mum’s I’m planning to get a memorial bench on the side of the lane looking out over our smallholding, which will have gorgeous views too. Then I’ll plant a few flowers and put their ashes there.

I like the Werther’s idea. Mum’s funeral was about 3 weeks ago. I planted up 90 little pots of daffodil bulbs and gave them out at her funeral. I’m now getting lots of pictures of them grown and blooming sent to me by her friends.