Suddenly ‘feeling’ my orphan status!

[SoLongAndThanksForAllTheChips]

I’m mid 40s, F, both my parents have died, all grandparents dead, and I am an only child.

I don’t think about it that much, but I need to have a bit of a scary (for me) health procedure soon, not life-threatening or anything - and today out of the blue, it hit me that I wish my mum or dad were still here.

I have a husband and nice friends, but I just had this feeling that I wish I could tell my mum what was happening. Somehow, I think my parents might ‘feel’ it more… that they might offer me more comfort than anyone else.

It’s a weird feeling and it’s taken me by surprise.

I think it is understandable. When we have no family left that knew aus as children, it can feel like we have lost our roots

Thank you, you’re right.

I also feel like it’s an unconditional “love” thing.
I never really wanted my parents to fuss or worry about me - but I somehow feel like I’m missing it at the moment.

That is understandable. You are feeling vulnerable and want cared for. Our earliest and most enduring memories of being cared for are by our parents. If you felt totally loved and safe with your parents, if course you will wish you had that now.

I totally understand - I’m the same. Have saved a voicemail from my Dad checking in to see how I was when I was poorly before he died. He used to be worried when I looked tired. I also feel so jealous when I see mothers and daughters out having coffees/ wines. It blind sides me at times that I will never see them again.

My parents died 18 years ago and I still feel like that at times. I have siblings but we have large age gaps and don’t live close and aren’t v close

Thank you for replying - and I’m sorry you all feel the same way sometimes.

I have a pretty constant little ache of loss, and then at times it also punches in the solar plexus. We were a family of five growing up and yet it became just me by the time I was 30. I’ve had over twenty years of it, of my children never having grandparents/their aunt/their uncle, seeing how much family is an intrinsic part of everyone around me’s lives (there is nobody local who doesn’t still have at least one relative left in their fifties) and I just have to do it as the matriarch myself. I’m very lucky, I have a really decent DP, but we don’t live together and don’t ever plan to.

Completely and utterly relate to this OP. I’m single with adult children who no longer live with me and an “orphan” as well.

It’s a truly horrible feeling not to be able to share things with those that had the most unconditional love for me and Me for them.

Losing my Mum two years ago changed me dramatically as a person because she was my best friend. She had a horrible disease and my dad had already gone.

Take good care of yourself and I hope your procedure goes well xx

I hear you. My DC all have big things going on at the minute and I have nobody to tell. Sending you strength x

I'm in the same boat, big hugs to you OP

Oh I get it @SoLongAndThanksForAllTheChips great username btw! I lost my mum when I was 11 and my dad before I was 30. Last GP died when I was still in single digits. I’m in my 50s now and I still feel it. Wish I could just pick up the bloody phone and chat about inane stuff sometimes, so when life gets tough I really miss having them here . Hugs and for you x

Wow, thank you all for such lovely comments.

I relate to the people who said most of their friends aren’t in the same boat.

My mum also died of a very horrible disease which I think has taken me some time afterwards to process. She wasn’t ‘there’ for a long time really, before she died… so it’s not like I have suddenly lost her.

Grief is anything but straight forward. It seems to take many unexpected twists and turns…!

I'm sorry you are feeling this way OP. It must be very difficult.

My parents are still alive - age 84 and 85. They are physically present, but so far from being the reassuring, comforting presence that they used to be. They now need my comfort and reassurance and support- but are totally unable to reciprocate. I am finding this very hard to come to terms with. It feels like a massive loss even though they are both still alive.

I don’t envy your position at all @BigBrownBoogyingBear- that’s so hard. Probably harder as there are so many emotions involved with your situation, and no doubt a lot of time and energy spent on them.

It's very hard OP and does keep hitting you unexpectedly. It really brought it home to me when I took DD to the place I had been born and realised that there was no-one left I could reminisce with about our life there.

I totally had this this year! I lost my
mum when I was young. I’m 47 and was diagnosed with ovarian cancer earlier this year and really missed having a mum to tell, to look after me, to cry with etc.

I think it’s a strange thing - losing both parents, all grand parents, having no siblings. It’s the sort of feeling that I think you might not fully understand until you reach that point yourself.

I have boxes full of ‘stuff’ that doesn’t mean anything to anyone in the world apart from me. I have presents that my parents bought my grandparents. None of them are alive now.
I have a lot of vivid memories of times and places that mean literally nothing to anyone else who is alive.

I mention things to my teenage children and they look at me as though they couldn’t give a monkeys (hopefully that’s just their age).

I feel like an old woman, talking about the past to people who don’t really care. I’m only in my 40s!

if I talk about losing my mum, a lot of my friends say “oh yes, when I lost my grandma it was awful”. It’s not their fault - they think they can relate but they really can’t.

Not sure what the point of this is, other than I feel like I now have an audience of people who do ‘get it’!

I totally agree with you. And I have to just say nothing when people think they can relate because they lost a grandparent or even a parent who was in their nineties. I too have no family left except the one I made.
I didn't think they would all have died by my age, and I wasn't an only child.

So lost all grandparents, parents, brother and aunts and uncles. I am only 64 and it has been like this for eight years.

What I really hate is friends saying oh I don't really have any family either we are not close, and then you turn up at their 60th birthday party and there is lots of family there. I have no nieces or nephews or cousins either.

It feels rootless.

So sorry.

I feel similar, although I still have my mum. We have never been close though, she has always been a difficult character and it has got worse since my dad died 3 years ago.

My dad was my support. I was 40 when he died and quite often found myself thinking “wtf”. I deal with a lot of families in the course of my work and there are people in their 60s and 70s who are still lucky enough to have either their mum or dad (or both!) around. My own beloved dad had his mum until he was 65. Just seems to shit that he died at 72, me being only 40, and my kids both under 6.

I feel a lot of anger about it.

I feel very alone despite my mum still being here, although I do recognise that despite the strained relationship we have it could still be even worse once she dies (she is in bad health, most of it self inflicted as she has barely eaten since dad died and won’t leave the house most days). I’m an only child so I really feel the pressure to make sure she’s ok even though we don’t get on.

Anyway, yes, it hit me just recently that my husband is my “family” now. My dad has always been my “in case of emergency” contact and that’s now my husband.

My husband is a good man. But he had an affair 6 years ago and we came very close to divorcing. We get on well and are generally pretty happy but the trust has gone and it’s very hard having my “family” and “emergency contact” being somebody who I cannot fully depend on 100% the way I could depend on my dad.

I guess it’s just part of growing up.

But I get how you feel. It’s hard.

Further to my post above, this really resonates with me as well.

I actually had a dream the other night, about a phrase my daughter used to say when she was learning to talk. It sounded like gobbledegook but it was actually my dad who figured out what she was saying, and we all used to say it a lot in those early years.

Time has moved on and our catchphrases and in-jokes have changed….my daughter probably won’t remember that phrase. Only my dad would. And he’s gone.

Similarly, there are places around our city that my dad always had stories about, from his childhood, adolescence etc. I can remember bits about them but not all the facts. All those stories are just going to go now. Just totally forgotten.

I also have boxes of stuff which belonged to parents / grandparents. None of it means anything to anybody except me.

I am extremely envious of people with alive, healthy parents and large families.

For that very reason, I wanted a large family of my own, as my dad’s health was failing for a few years before he died and I could see the way things were headed. Unfortunately it took a long time to conceive my second and a difficult birth made a third inadvisable. So I do have two and I am very grateful for that. But I would have liked more. Although I guess that’s possibly selfish, and also doesn’t really solve anything anyway as kids aren’t the piece that’s missing from my family.

I hope you are ok and that your procedure goes well x

It's understandable. I remember being scared when I went down with my first cold after my mum died, not being able to tell her and get a bit of sympathy. Hope you're OK.

I think that's common, especially when you've no siblings/aunts/uncles etc, and all in-laws are at a stage when they need care from you, not the other way around. I suppose in the past, we'd have had kids old enough to help us by now, but the world's changed.
I hope you're ok, and am glad you have a husband and hope he helps you. It really worries me that many people won't have in the future, as relationships become less secure

I totally understand, I lost my dad in July - he was the last member of my family, I lost my sister last year, my mum 5 years ago.
I feel a bit rootless even though I have a husband and children.

I hear you OP and get you!

I’m in my 40s too - my mum died when I was 21 and while she did meet DH she never saw us get married and never met DS. My dad (technically step dad but that’s a whole other long complicated story) died 6 years ago. All of my grandparents were already gone at that point and I too am an only child.

PIL are amazing, I’ve known them since I was 16 and they really do treat me like a daughter. But I do sometimes wonder what would happen if anything ever happened to DH or if we ever separated.

I can often see a future where it’s just me….. DS flown the best with his own family. He’s a mummy’s boy but you know the saying, a son for life until he takes a wife……

Sometimes It makes me sad but other times I think of all the adventures cantankerous 80 year old me could go on and mischief I could get up to if I didn’t have anyone but myself to worry about 🤣

My mother died three years ago and I miss her most when I go away or do something interesting or something funny happens. Because then I want to see hone and tell her about it, as I always did, and I can’t.