Is this normal- anniversary

[slet]

This time last year my dad was diagnosed with cancer and he died in May.

i still can’t believe it happened.

at the minute, i keep thinking of where we were at this time last year- like, this was the day we had that awful appointment with the consultant, etc.

i keep a diary and normally at the end of the year I put last years diary on the shelf. But this year, I have kept it out, next to my current diary, and I keep checking it, seeing what was happening this time last year. I can feel it getting worse as more horrible milestones keep coming up.

is this normal? Or is it an unhealthy reaction?

Sorry for your loss OP. My MIL died in a very similar way and time frame last year and I know how difficult it is when traumatic things happen so quickly.
Your feelings sound normal to me. Well, if you're not normsl, neither am I, or anyone in my famly! Ithink the "firsts" are the hardest. It's over a decade since my own parents died and I whilst I still think about them a lot, especially on anniversaries, it's not with the same gut wrenching grief of the first year. I don't think you ever completely "get over" losing someone you love but it does get easier with time.
I think especially when something bad has happened suddenly it's natural to look back with strong emotions. Not a death, but I had a life changing car accident 7 years ago this month and I still spend a lot of February feeling upset, especially when I read my Facebook memories of the normal things I was doing in the days beforehand, completely oblivious of what was to come.
Time eases, even if it doesn't completely heal. But it does take time and one year is nothing. Be kind to yourself.

I’m so sorry for your loss. Yes, anniversaries are the worst. My DH died suddenly just over a year ago, just before Christmas. Christmas was very bad for me.

There’s no ‘right’ way to grieve, it’s very personal. 💐

Absolutely, I kept doing the same last year. The actual.annivrrsary wasn't so bad, it was the anniversary of the 3 month lead up to it from when we knew which way things were going that was the worst.

I'm doing the exact same. Dad was diagnosed in March last year and died in April. I keep reading last years WhatsApp messages seeing what we were doing, this weekend was the last football match we managed to go to together before everything went pear shaped. I know i'm torturing myself but i just can't help it!

It's absolutely normal and not unhealthy at all OP. The first year is one series of milestones after the other - the first Christmas, the first birthday, the first anniversary.

In more recent bereavements I have really tried not to remember dates of events in the hope of avoiding the sadness of anniversaries. It has worked a bit but not entirely.

I'm so sorry for your loss.

im sorry for your loss.

i kept my old calendar with all the hospital dates and stuff for a year and took that year to process it all, looking back at the timeline and reliving it.

after that year i still kept it but i didn’t look at it. it’s too sad and life goes on. i just sucked it up and grieved on birthday and anniversary of his passing. next year will be a decade. it doesn’t feel it in many ways but in others it does.

Yep, its very normal and I did this with both of my parents deaths and the year that followed.

Funnily enough its exactly a year today since the last time I facetimed my Dad. As we said 'goodbye, and I love you' that day, little did I know I would never see or speak to him alive again.

On the Wednesday I facetimed him at my usual time and he didn't answer. I didn't think much of it, assuming he was pottering out in the garden or had taken the dog for a walk so I planned to give it a couple of hours and try again. Little did I know my Dad had passed away watching TV the night before and had just not yet been found. A panicked phone call from my brother an hour later to tell me he had been to the house to take him some shopping and had found him dead with his dog curled up on his lap 😢

But I also keep doing the 'this time last year' stuff. I did it with my Mum too but I know that it will stop eventually and I will no longer have those thoughts.

I am so sorry for your loss 🌹

Yes I spent 4 years reliving every moment of my husband's last few months. Jan to march. Awful. At year six I said "that's enough" and went away for a few days and decided I needed to move forwards. 14 years on I really don't think about it much at all. But it was hard in the beginning. Like multiple flash backs

Sympathies for your loss. My DH died unexpectedly on Hogmanay. I have to avoid tv and go to bed early every year. It’s awful that it’s the most celebrated holiday here in Scotland.

I did the same thing for the first-anniversary months leading up to my mum's death from acute leukaemia. I seemed to need to replay all the emergency admissions and false hopes and relapses and then hopelessness when we knew nothing more could be done. I think it's part of the process for some of us and it will stop when it's done the work it needs to do.

Everything is normal.
My much loved Dad died a couple of years ago and I can’t even remember the date (and I was the one doing probate) I am sad that he died but I can’t say I’ve been that upset at all. It is not because I didn’t love him and it’s nots because I’m suppressing anything. My Mum and brother are the same. We chat about him and miss him but basically carry on with things. I think we are very comfortable with our feelings. I don’t feel any guilt that I’m not feeling really sad about it. I know I was a great daughter and I know we had a great relationship. I like to think about that rather than his death.
My experience is normal but so is yours. If you are feeling that it is causing you an issue then why don’t you try some counselling, they won’t make it better but they might help manage your feelings.

It was normal for me OP. When my husband died quite suddenly I did exactly the same thing. I kept looking back at the previous year's diary to see what we were doing on any given day in the months before he died. I guess it was a way of processing the reality that my life would never be the same again. Also a way of "connecting" with that old life and with him perhaps.

My mum passes 2 years ago, the first anniversary of her death I was thinking that this time last year she had 2 hours to live, I found that upsetting but last years anniversary I raised a glass

Thank you for the kind responses everyone

it is good to know I am not alone in doing this!

Oh yes definitely. Coming up to the first anniversary of my dads death, mum relived every day (he died very suddenly when they were on holiday).
The first of every significant date is also very hard, remembering previous birthdays, mothers/fathers
day, Christmas etc. Sundays felt empty as we often saw them on a Sunday and any family birthday or celebration felt like there was an “empty chair”.
Mum lived a further 25 years and sadly in her latter years her memory failed and she no longer remembered the date or the details.
She died a few years ago and we remember the happy times now.
It’s hard and sad but part of the grieving process and leads to reliving happy memories rather than the deep sadness of the early years.

There’s tab open on my browser to an industry specific forum my dad posted on a lot.

It’s always open, but I don’t click it and read his posts. Except this time of year, when I found out he had died, it feels harder to resist spending time with his digital ghost.

It’s been so many years. The grief has turned into something softer, like an achey echo of love. But anniversaries are still a little harder than the rest of the time.

Until I felt grief myself I didn’t know what a juggernaut it was. So huge hug. Don’t worry too much if you are doing grief “right”. For most of the people, most of the time, it’s just going to do what it wants, when it wants, and the best you can do is accept there’s no “proper” way to go through it.

I'm not looking forward to this, but I know it's coming. My Dad died four weeks ago, little more than a month after being diagnosed with metastatic cancer. I'm already thinking about my children's birthdays and how empty weekends will be without catching up with him. I almost feel like this is a joke someone has played on me and it's not really real, because it felt very quick. I was suddenly in carer mode, then funeral mode.

Funeral is tomorrow and I'm so nervous as I've organised much of it, but havent had a lot of time to think about losing him. I just want the day to go well first and foremost. I keep getting images from his last few weeks in my head randomly. Not sure if these are flashbacks or my brains way of gradually processing his quick decline. Some of the memories are very sweet though. I really bloody miss him. I think it is occasions around food and my kids birthdays I will miss the most, because he was a very involved grandparent. Christmas will be shit for obvious reasons, but the fact he declined over Christmas rapidly will always be a reminder.

I hope you manage to get through the days and weeks ahead of you OP. It is so tough, especially when it is unexpected or a quick decline. 💐

Like @Musicaltheatremum I am reliving the last few weeks of my wife's life. I am not as far down the road though, as my wife only died last August. It sucks. I keep thinking of all the things I didn't do, should have said, could have said etc. In reality, even had I done / said all those things, I would probably be thinking this way about a bunch of other stuff. I only hope she knew how much I loved her and what a difference she had made to my life, even if for too short a time. I hope I did the same for her.

There are some positives if I clutch at straws. She didn't have to live with the finality of the end being imminent for too long a period. I was able to stay with her during the whole end of life process. Horrible though it was, I didn't leave her side and was holding her foot as she took her last breath. And, that we are in the UK, and not Gaza / Ukraine with bombs going off around us.

I feel like I want to go back to every single place we ever went to together. Totally unrealistic, and I don't know what I would do if I did. I just want to stay connected, but the reality of it is that I can do that at any time, I don't need to be anywhere particular. It is funny how the brain processes these things.

Sorry for your loss @slet , just take each day as it comes.