If you lost your parents young (before you turned 40, say) did you ever feel like this?

[followtheswallow]

I already know I’m going to explain this badly. Both my parents are dead. My mum died when I was still at school then my dad died when I was in my late 20s. I’m now 45, almost 46, so quite a while ago now.

My friends parents (and PIL) are probably going to start passing away in the next ten years and while of course I’m sorry for their losses there is part of me that feels resentful. FIL is currently undergoing tests - there’s nothing been established as ‘wrong’ yet.

I definitely don’t mean I want them to die! I suppose I just feel sad my own loss and grief has long been forgotten.

I was 27 when my dad died. Mam kept going till I was 48. Losing dad was tough especially as it was out of the blue. And he never got to see my 2 youngest. He would have adored them.
My kids were 14 17 and 24 when their father passed. Again out of the blue an accidental death. My son (oldest) misses the dad stuff all the time.
My step son lost his mother when he was 7. Again out of the blue...Brain haemorrhage. Just awful. 20 years this year for her.
Time just passes so quickly doesnt it and everyone's lives just all carry on.
I haven't really resented anyone with fathers alive in particular. What I do find makes me angry is its always seems to be the toerags that sail through life and will probably live till they're 100 while the good people I know left us so early...
My heart goes out to you all.

I’m so sorry for your losses OP. As others have said, those are your feelings so they’re not wrong and for what it’s worth I think it’s quite a common feeling and I empathise. I was 39 when I lost my DF who was 69 and I miss him every day and think he died far too young, and I do deep down feel somewhat of a sense of ‘jealousy’ as it were for friends and family who still have both their parents. At the same time my DH lost his father when he was a little boy, and I feel grateful to have had my own DF for so much longer and also heartbroken for him that he lost his father so very very young. There’s part of me that still wants to stamp my feet and howl noooooooo.

I am really, really sorry, and I apologise unreservedly. I was thinking a PP's posts were yours.

I hope you'll forgive me 🙏 💐

I get you
43, lost dad at 41 and 11 months and mum at 35. Nowhere near as young as you obviously, but yes it still feels weird to watch other people struggle with their parents getting older and kind of think well at least you got longer with them. Conversely, I am still good friends with the parents of my best friend from uni, who died when we were 41. That is a different kind of lovely but odd!

Thanks @followtheswallow🙏

What a staggeringly insensitive thing to say…

I can relate so much to this thread! I lost my mum at 51 when I was 21 and DH lost his a few years later when our eldest was a baby. I feel somewhat resentful that my mum never saw me graduate, get married or meet any of her grandchildren. And now that I’m in my 40s, I often think how much of our lives she’s missed. And how my kids have missed out on having either of their grandmothers (and having somewhat disinterested grandfathers instead).

A friend’s father just died and on a group chat, someone commented that it was such a tragedy. I couldn’t help thinking that, although I understand they are allowed to be upset, they should be thankful that he lived to old age, saw his kids grow up and his grandchildren into their teens. That’s not a tragedy!

I feel sad when friends’ mums are at their kids’ sport’s games and school events. Sometimes it’s hard not to feel bitterness and jealousy creeping in!

It isn’t insensitive really - it’s the whole point of the thread. My colleague lost her mum last month - my colleague is 62 and her mum was 88. I had a bit of sympathy but not much; she had her mum for 39 years more than I did and if anything I’m jealous as hell.

my father died when I was very young and my mum when I was late 30s. Dementia, I’d done a lot of the grieving in the years prior. Another friend was in her 40s when her mum and dad died. It was hard to find anyone who really empathised. I felt I’d lost my mum before I’d done lots of things I wanted to share with her. I think for my siblings who have kids it was worse, things they wanted to share and couldn’t.

But like others I’ve spent years sympathising with friends and also being a bit envious of their relationship with living parents. But also glad in a way that caring and worrying about a very ill parent isn’t part of my life anymore.

My mother died aged 61. Her sister was 89 and spent 10 years in the fog of dementia and never knew her youngest grandchildren. The only person she recognised for a few years was her son's best friend.
I know how awful those years were.
But my cousin was able to take her mother on a river cruise and to the ballet in London and other lovely things. So I missed that and it hurts.

A friend of mine lost both her parents when she was young, and the grief never really settled for her. “Recovered” isn’t even the right word — it’s more like she’s had to build an adult life without the people who should have been there to see it. She carries a lot of anger and a deep sense of being cheated out of years she should have had with them. Because of that, she gets understandably upset when I mention my own parents. They’re still alive, but our relationship complicated, and not in a warm way. I’ve stopped bringing them up around her, because I know it lands differently for her.
What I’d never say out loud is that I won’t feel the same sense of loss she does. I don’t dread losing my parents — if anything, I sometimes look forward to the freedom that will come when that chapter finally closes. Not all parents are a blessing, and not every loss is the same kind of wound.