If you’re grieving, share something you don’t feel able to say out loud

[Tinywedding]

I’ll go first. I haven’t said these things to anyone as I’m worried they make me a monster.

For context, my dad was diagnosed with a terminal illness (that has a 100% fatality rate whatever stage it’s diagnosed) when I was in my 20s and passed relatively recently.

I really want them to find a cure for his illness so no one ever needs to go through this. But I don’t want them to find a cure too quickly. That would absolutely destroy me if they discovered a miracle cure that he only just missed. Tbh even a recent drug advancement has made me really upset and envious. And then I feel so guilty because I know there are families that desperately need a cure right now.

When it was clear he was dying, I was always hopeful that there would be some miracle that saved him. But caring for him for over a year day and night and his decline took such a toll on me that in the last month of his life I remember thinking ‘oh my god, if he was miraculously cured he does still have to die at some point. Then I’d have to do this again 10-20 years down the line. And I don’t have it in me.’

Maybe no one will respond to this thread but I just had to get these thoughts off my chest. Thank you for reading.

thank you for starting this thread OP. I am sorry too there’s so much grief out there (especially those who have lost someone young or a child) - I guess it really is the price we pay for love xx

My dad died 16 years ago very suddenly. I loved him enormously but after he’d died I went into his emails to find some contact details and he’d sent a couple of emails blaming me for something I didn’t do (it was to do with excluding his disabled sister from my wedding which I had not wanted to do but he and my mum had said it’d not be possible for her to come due to logistics). My uncle died a couple of years ago and it reminded again of the emails and that he must have been left to think I was a cruel person. His sister had never wanted to see me after the wedding and Dad had empathised with me but I’d never known what he’d really told her. It’s kind of my last memory of him and casts a shadow.

I had a similar experience. My dad’s cancer spread to his brain and it changed him. He was angry, his personality changed, he hated being touched or for his beloved dog to be anywhere near him. he wanted to be dead and would frequently ask us to help him kill himself and get angry with us for not being able to do that.

I’m so sorry for everything you have gone through and I hope things will start to feel better for you.

Sorry for all your losses I hate that we’ve all had to deal with this.

I lost my mum and dad young, and I really struggle being round my aunties and uncles, cousins and their kids I feel on the peripheral which somehow hurts more seeing how they are, grandparents picking up kids from school etc when mine won’t, popping over for brews etc chatting about memories, those conversations that I just won’t ever have again.

My Partner died 4 years ago. We had been together for 9 years, then separated for 20. After we found each other again we had 6 more years before his cancer took him. He left his body to medical science. I couldn't bear that thought - his choice & very altruistic but I did (& do) fund it very hard to think of.

Someone I know through an activity I do (outing so can't say what) just lost her 100yr old mother. Everyone is making a big fuss over her and I just can't really bring myself to because my mum died at 75 in 2022.
I get that it's still sad, but I can't help feeling upset that my mum didn't get 25 more years...

I know this feeling and I did actually say this to a close friend why do all the good ones die. Felt wrong saying it but it is how I feel

Sorry for all the quotes but resonates so much! My dad died in his 40s, mum when she was 70 and a friends grandma died at 100 and I cannot cope with her trying to make it the same

Sorry to hear that and so sorry for all others on this thread who have been through worse than me.
My dad died at 74. Three years before my mum and my in-laws are still around. When DH phones them I have to leave the room because it gets to me every time.

@Pianoaholic does your DH get it though, because when mine tries to FaceTime his parents with the kids I can’t bear it, they have chosen to be distant from us all despite us all trying anyway so I don’t know why he does it, winds me up even more that my mum made such an effort with the kids.

8 weeks after that, my Mother died (my Father already passed). A few months later my teenage son went into heart failure (he survived but is still not well). My adoptive Mother has just had her cancer return again (stage 4). for everyone here x

Bless you, I can totally empathise. I was only 47 when I married for the 2nd time and moved to another part of the country, just before my Mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I had so many plans in my head for introducing her to another part of the country and having her to stay and also staying with her and showing my Husband her part of the country that he wasn't familiar with. She had spent all of her life caring for others but only lived to 70. I took me years not to be envious of Mum's and daughters out together, sharing laughs, teascand shopping.

Also with my Dad, he died so suddenly at 60 with so much more to give the world x

I've been at my current workplace for quite a long time now so I've had close colleagues where I've known them as their teenage children approached the age I was when my mum died... And they got to keep living and developing a relationship with their child as they become an adult and support them as they leave home and buy their first place and get married and invite their mum over for coffee and visit flower shows and go on weekend trips away...

And I'm so happy that they get to experience those things and be there to support their children as they enter adulthood. It's genuinely lovely to hear about and "witness" then growing up together. But it also kills me. I come home and cry and wish i wasn't here.

I listen to their news and their stories and I plaster smiles on for them and remember important details and ask questions and say the right things because I care about them as people, but I wish they would care enough about me in return not to put me in the position of having to do that when they know my mum died young and I never got to experience any of the things they're rubbing in my face. It rips me apart inside having to listen to their lovely lives with their young adult children and desperately trying to imagine what it would have been like to do any of those things with my mum.

And frankly the same with all my colleagues who got to have parents in their lives as adults, loving them, supporting them, spending time with them. I'm glad they got to have that but I hate how oblivious they are to their own privilege and how much pain they cause me listening to them talk freely about their lives when I get the cold shoulder if I even mention my mum lightly in passing. So I censor myself for their comfort when they never do that for me, ever.

People who have had parents in their life as a positive presence as adults have no idea how much of a difference it made. And I hate them for the fact they are so oblivious and take it for granted that they felt confident to take risks and venture out into the world knowing they had a safety net of people who'd help them. Or spend the weekend putting up shelves in their first house. Or hold their hand at the hospital. Or help them plan their wedding. Or help them prepare for an interview. Or come to their graduation. Or just talk fondly about them to their colleagues at work.

Oh @Tinywedding ‘making memories’ wasn’t my experience at all either. He was absolutely furious, incandescent with rage about what had happened, when he wasn’t completely delusional. I mean, there were some gentler days in it all but we were still stuck, trapped in a hospital in an absolute horror show surrounded by misery and sad endings. Not for us chats about our love or nice words to carry us through later, it was all desperate, undignified, deep suffering. And rage.

Absolutely. Ugh. Thankfully I at least managed to bully him into giving me power of attorney but it took forever. <3 thank you

I understand this.

I remember bumping into a family friend shortly after my dad got his terminal diagnosis. This man was in his 70s and explained he was coming back from his dad’s funeral. Thank god I didn’t say it out loud but all I could think was “you’re mid 70s and have only lost your dad now?! While I am literally 50 years younger”

However I feel I’m now seeing the other side a bit more. Last week another family friend in her 70s lost her dad who was 102(!) I don’t think anyone could argue he was struck down in his prime (to quote grandpa Joe in Derry girls) but I have seen her care for this man for about 30 years. She’s single and has literally built her life around him since her 40s, living with him for decades etc. I appreciate this loss will be hugely significant and completely alter her life, just in a very very different way to my loss.

My dad died 5 months ago, he actually 'died' 5 months before that when the hospital he'd despised his whole life operated on a fractured hip and caused post operative delirium. Then completely messed up his aftercare
I also feel so angry that my mum lives with advanced dementia, didn't recognise me at my dad's funeral, but is still very much alive.

Me too.

I cannot put into words how it makes me feel.

I have had so much death in my life recently.

one was expected (cancer) one was a huge shock (young and accident) one was an elderly person. But do not try and tell me that any of the above is far worse than losing an animal. Because that’s hit me harder than most.

Love is love. Grief is grief. I sorry for your loss, I’m sorry for everyone’s loss, but that doesn’t take away from my loss either. Mine isn’t a ‘lesser’ loss because of x,y,z. It just isn’t.

Oh god I am constantly doing that kind of mental arithmetic. I think it's just confusion - it's been two decades and my brain still can't process that my lovely mum died so young 😞

@Wallawallakoala my in-laws are exactly the same, never been bothered at all about their grandkids. That's what makes it so hard as mine adored DD and DS.
I don't think my DH does understand really. But he does sometimes suggest visiting with DD and DS but they are now 17 and 19 and not interested.

@Tinywedding
I can empathise. My mum died 15 years ago when she was in her early 60s.
A few years later I read that 90% of patients of that cancer survived 5 years, and over 75% survived 10 years. Of course im pleased at those survival rates but I felt aggrieved my mum was in the smaller percentage.

Years after she died, I saw my neighbour walk back from the school run with her mum. Completely out of nowhere I felt unbelievably upset and jealous, I had to slightly reroute the very short (literally minutes) walk home because if id had to say anything to them id have burst into tears!

All loss is loss, all grief is grief. I don't tend to think about comparisons in the way that others might as dad is 80 and soldiering on, mum is 77 and doing the same. But something I would love to say... to my sister... is that mum and dad are now the oldest people on both sides of the family. They won't be around forever. Although they are relatively sprightly... my dad had a heart incident two years ago and another one two days ago. Who was there for both - me? Mum had her hip replaced last year and another one due hopefully this year - who dealt with the last one and will deal with this one - me?

I don't mind helping them at all. I love them dearly. I live 70 miles away and see them at least once a month - more if I am helping out with something specific. But she does nothing, literally nothing. I am torn between resenting her for being a lazy, selfish cow and feeling that she is missing out on their last years and how that impacts on both her and them. I am not even sure what I am trying to say. It's a weird mixture of emotions. Plus neither wants a funeral so there won't be a ritual to say goodbye to either - other than what we organise independently. Which currently will probably be just what we are planning for my aunt who passed away last month which is a family meal - one she can come to, but won't.

I think I just need to write a film script at this point to get all of the conflicting stuff that I feel out of my gut and into the open! It is so bizarre having sympathy and anger and frustration and hope all screwed up into one ball. So hard to explain.

Such grief . But it is the human experience that everyone will have loss at some stage . It is the love that we had that makes their death so difficult to bear . The only comfort is that we had them in our lives and had a chance to love so deeply . Many people never experience this. When you lose someone that you had a unhappy relationship with it can be so confusing . A wish that things had been different or that you had more time to get things right with them .
My parents both died suddenly, father 16 months after my mother . He had just come to terms with living on his own . Both were elderly but self sufficient. I regret so much that I didn't get the opportunity to look after them to try to repay all the help and support they had given me . It especially grieves me as I took care of an elderly uncle for 3 years that wasn't particularly grateful. Not his fault but it did make me think how much my parents would have appreciated me.

When I lost my brother I lost my best friend. I will never share the same with my sisters the way I shared with him, I could trust him with anything but they could turn against me whenever they take a notion. Life will never be the same