Its been five months and I just can't get over my dads death.

[yorkiemom]

I still can't accept that my dad has gone. This is absolutely mad, as I nursed my dad at the end, and watched him take his last breath.

Am I going crazy or will I never accept this? Some days I'm not too bad, then others I will cry and just feel totally bitter.

Would be very grateful if anyone can help mt out here.

Many thanks.

I did the same for my dad 13 years ago. You are not going crazy. Bereavement isn't a simple process and lasts a long long time. But it does get better and you feel different. I still miss my Dad all the time. I wish he had met my children. Often though I think of him with love and a smile. It is still so new for you - after 5 months I still hadn't smiled or laughed and truly believed I might never feel like laughing ever again. But a friend dragged me to a party seven months after his death. The last thing I wanted to do. I met the man who is now my husband and father of our three wonderful children there. Life began to come back. I still cry, I still miss Dad and there are days when I feel crazy. But not all the time.

I don't think you 'get over' a death but you do get more used to it and it becomes less of a monster squatting on your life. I think more of my Dad now, and less of the death.

For me when I thought of Dad's illness (he had lung cancer) and death I thought of the traumatic things, the miserable and frightening things most of the time. It is really only now I find myself thinking of the times during his illness when we laughed, were cosy together and remember that even with the terrible constant anxiety there were light hearted moments. Not every second of it was bad - but it had taken me a very long time to think that.

What did your Dad die of? I have to go now but will talk more if you like. Did you have a close relationship with him?

I am sorry for you and although your feelings are all your own there are other people treading a very similar road - just not all at the same pace. Time doesn't heal exactly, but it does change things in a good way. The first year is often really tough. Don't panic. I'll come back later.

Oh Yorkiemom, I really feel for you.

My Dad died 2.5yrs ago (suddenly) and after 5 months I was still a wreck. I think the best advice I can give is to be gentle with yourself. Nobody can prepare you for losing a parent, whether they are ill or not.

Grief is a strange thing that comes and goes. Even now, I still have days when I think - Jesus I miss Dad, wish I could talk to him, hold his hand...

It took me months and months to accept and grasp that my Dad was dead. I could accept theoretically that the person (ie Joe Bloggs) was gone, but couldn't seem to link that person to my Dad and that he was gone too.

I second everything NormaJeanBaker said... you never get over the loss. It took me about eighteen months to stop feeling bitter (once it came) but everyone is different. I don't know whether you have seen this poem before, but I always find it an immense comfort when I'm having a blue day -

Miss Me, But Let Me Go

When I come to the end of the road
And the sun has set for me,
I want no rites in a gloom filled room
Why cry for a soul set free!
Miss me a little, but not for long,
And not with your head bowed low.
Remember the love we once shared,
Miss me, but let me go!
For this a journey we all must take,
And each must go alone;
It's all a part of the master's plan
A step on the road to home.
When you are lonely and sick of heart
Go to the friends we know,
And bury your sorrows in doing good deeds,
Miss me, but let me go.

Robyn Rancman

Remember that it isn't weakness to cry, to grieve - it is always better to let it out than to crumble inside. You have been through a horrible time and 5 months is nothing to recover from it. It will take time, but it will get easier.

yorkiemom so sorry about your dad. can't offer any advice as mine only died last saturday, but am here if you need to talk.

I am now struggling a bit with several new bereavements - including my mum and both in-laws. I was drifting about in Borders the other day - thinking about death and getting tearful in the psychology section - as you do. Found this book which is not exactly enjoyable but has many echoes of my own feelings. As the author says such books are sometimes a great help and other times you want to hurl them at the wall - often you feel both those reactions on the same chaotic day. But if anyone is interested I think it is very honest. It is called 'You'll Get Over It - the rage of bereavement' by Virginia Ironside pub. Penguin.

Hope all in this crappy club are OK this evening.

Oh love... I sat with my dad and held his hand and watched him die. he was everything to me, a wonderful man who brought me up single handed.

It'll be ten years this christmas.

It will get easier, honestly. Although I still have days when I think I must tell dad about something funny thats happened.

Life's unfair... my dad never got to meet my beautiful DS.

Accept the bad days for what they are and on the good days remember something happy about him.

Really five months is nothing: honestly it isn't.

Have a look atb the bereavement process (willfind you a link):it won't change anything but there may be comfort in predictability and knowig you are normal.

here

its all normal, i still have my moments 2 years on but the 'horror' ( and it was, rather than shock) of what happened, will subside and become easier.

In my experience, that sense of loss and shock doesn't really go away, but you do learn to live with it and it doesn't stop you being happy at other times. Five months is so short a time, though - it's not a case of waking up one day and suddenly accepting it; it's more that gradually you learn how to cope with how you're feeling. It really does get easier, but you're in the very early stages and need to go easy on yourself.

Five years here since my father died and still, if the phone rings at around 6 on a Saturday, I sometimes think "Oh good, that will be Dad". And I think that's quite normal - so many people assume bereavement is just something you get over, and it's never that simple. It changes you profoundly - you won't be the same person; don't wait for things to feel "normal". But you will cope.

Psychlogists say that a human being takes 7 years to go through the process of bereavement. It just takes time.

Thanks so much everyone . I just can't seem to be able to picture my dad as he was before and it scares me.
He dies of pancreatice cancer, and it was absolutely horrible to watch someone shrink before your eyes. he practically starved to death. I just want to be able to forget the look in his eyes that last week, but feel I never will.

I'm so sorry to hear so many other people have felt like this, and I know I must try to count my lucky stars, and look at my 2 children, amnd feel grateful, but I think I'm turning inot a horrible bitter person, who looks at people around my dads age 58 and feel jelous that they are here and he is not. Its horrible is'nt it ???

I'm sorry I'm rambling now and its probably time to go to bed, I just miss my dad so much, and the pain stuck in my chest just hurts so much.

Thank you to you all, its good to konw that I'm not going mad.

Thanks ever so much and good nightx

Yorkiemom - I totally understand, my Dad was also 58 and when I would speak to people at work and find out they were 60+ I would occur to me - how?! How are they still alive? And why? When my Dad is gone.

You get over that though, it won't last forever. I always consider myself lucky that I had such a wonderful Dad at all, most of my friends were devastated when he died as he had been the closest thing they had ever got to a Dad. When I was at my lowest points, the thought of that got me through.

You are bound to find it difficult to believe that your feelings will change, but they will.

Just wanted to say that I lost my Dad to alcoholism 16mths ago and I still have really crappy days. Whilst he was a wonderful guy, he had a hideous death and I felt really stuck in how bad he was at the end. What I found helped was to put a really terrific photo of him in a frame in a room that gets used all the time. It catches my eye EVERY day, several times a day. As the weeks and months go on it's like it has gradually reprogrammed my memories of him and I remember him much more fondly now. It was taken when he was still my strong, handsome Dad and whilst it hasn't obliterated the ugly memories, it has made them less frequent.

It does get better: Death leaves a heartache no-one can heal, love leaves a memory no-one can steal (on my Dad's headstone).

it will take a while to not have at thefront ofyour mind what the death of your dad was like i think we re live it to try andmake some kind of sense of something that can never make sense.
you may feel like me yorkiemum, you knew he was going to die and in some ways you think that may prepare you and spare you the shock of the death, i still feel like i am in shock 8 months on.
i am not sure you ever accept, more like you kinda get used to something that you didn't want. you find a new normal.

Oh. how horrible for you.

Lost my dad 13 years ago and I still get the odd day when I miss him, have a little cry and think 'he would love this/this would be his 60th b'day/he'd laugh at this' etc.

Lost my mum 2 years ago and I'm still a bit raw but after 5 months I was still a wreck.

Cliched, but it will get better. Time does heal and life goes on. He wouldn't want you all sad so do your best to stay happy (not v helpful?!)

Be good to yourself. x

Yorkiemum...I lost my Mum 4 months ago to hideous agressive ovarian cancer. She was 63, a fittness freak got abdominal pain and went from emergency surgery, to diagnosis to death in 8 weeks. I was so traumatic. Like the others are saying I am stuck in the illness and death part...going round and round...it was brutal ...she suffered, suffered, suffered. I am preoccupied with it all day long sometimes I am overwhelmed and I cry...I have no real expectations of myself over the next year or so, other than to get up each day and feed my kids etc. Like you I am hanging on to the fact that we adored her and she really was fabulous. Many of my friends have not had the same relationship with their own mothers and have told me that my mum guided then at really important stages in their lives...I keep saying I was blessed to have had her...but it still hurts.

Keep talking to who ever will listen...its painful but healing in the longer term. All I know is that I am devastated....some times to the point of incapacity...but at other times I just tick along. This afternoon I have been arranging how/where we will do her anniversary mass in october where christmas 2009 will be friends have told me the 2nd Christmas is worse that the first I know I am just trying to control stuff but with things in the diary I feel a little bit anchored. I wish you well at this very difficult time...let stuff out and take it easy...

oh yorkiemom am so sorry to hear this I was hoping you were doing ok

I can only echo what everyone has said before me, its good advice

be kind to yourself and don't expect too much too soon

Thanks everyone. I hope at some point that how he suffered at the end will become more of a memory, than an every day thing.

I'm sorry, I'm not making much sense. What I mean I can't seem to put in words. I feel haunted by how my dad died at the end, and thats what I keep thinking of, and could I have done things differently, made it better for him?

I cannot accept that I don't have to take him to the hospital any more, that all that is over. I still forget, and last Thursday even thought ,"iwonder what thime dad has to see Dr Peake today" how stupid is that ?

I look at my sisters and brothers and they seem to be doing ok, much better than me, so why can't I cope better, I'm aure they loved him just as much as me.

Another stupid thing is that I'm so grateful to all of you taking time to post replies to me, when you have all gone through this terrible pain also. It nice to know I'm not alone, but also sorry that you all have this pain too.
Hello oj, how are you and your children doing? I read your post last month about Steve's birthday. You and your children are just fantatic xx

Hello also dizzy, how are things with you ?

Thanks again everyone xx

Have justread all your posts again, and must say another thank you to you all.

I'm sorry if this reopens up wounds for some of you.

Why do these shit things happen? Why can't bloody murderers and evil people get cancer and not good kind people who did'nt need to go yet ??

yorkie I don't meant to sound arsey here but I believe I'm about 5 or 6 months ahead of you in very similar circumstances?

I'm not saying I have completely forgotten everything she went through but I am taking great comfort in the fact she is no longer in pain and the person she had become has now gone

it is my beleif that wherever she is she is back to her old self and released from the misery that was her ongoing illness

I'm now beginning to remember things beyond her illness and managed to go through and help dad sort her clothes out without it being traumatic

you're being too hard on yourself, you need to take time and realise that everyone grieves differently, maybe behind closed doors your siblings are wondering how you are managing?

you're not alone by any means and there will always be someone one here to talk to. even if we can't help we can listen

i do understand about how the end haunts you, some days i am still stuck in that bit, the last time that i saw steve was at the funeral place, it didn't look like him, his hair was all wrong he smelt all wrong and he felt all wrong, i don't know that it helped for me to see him like that, but i can't undo it. its not fair to yourself to even try to compare how you are dealing with your grief next to how your siblings look like they are dealing with it,as we all put on a front to the world.
there are no short cuts on this road and sometimes it feels like we have already done this part of the road but we have to do it again many times, i am still protesting about being on this road.

Thanks dizzy and oj. I do try and remember all the good, and funny times before cancer took my dad. You are so right dizzy I should be glad that my dad is no longer suffering, and I really am, I wold'nt want dad back at that stage for anything, but sometimes I feel like stampiong my feet and saying I want him back how he was before (like a 3 year old tamtrum !!) Mad !!

I am glad dad is'nt suffering anymore, I just wish I could get past the bitter feeling, perhaps you are right I just need to give it time.

Somedays its not too bad, and I can block the bad memories out of my head, there is so much else going on. My mums house is going through the stages of being repossesed, and I'm trying to find her somewhere else to live. Instead of taking my dad to the hospital I seem to be taking my mum to the court and various different council offices, which is a nightmare !!
I am really stressed over this and I know I'm taking my bad moods out on my dh and children, which I've got to stop, but sometimes with everything going through my head I feel like screaming !!!!
Thanks you both again so much, sometimes I jhust need to get all of this off my chest.
I dont know if either of you are religious but when I go to mass this morning I will light a candle for your mum dizzy, and Steve, along with my dad. I hope this is ok with you both. xx

with all that going on you've every right to be stressed/harrassed with all this going on, can your siblings not help out more with your mum?

am sure your dh understands with everything that has happened but it sounds as if you are having to take on a lot - please remember to take the time to grieve for your loss and deal with your own pain, you have to look after you too

thank you for lighting a candle

My dad died suddenly 12 years ago. He was 62 and I went through the rage of seeing old people and being angry that they were alive and he was gone.

It stopped feeling so raw on the 7th anniversary. That was the first day we were able to talk about him fondly without the hurt.

5 months is nothing. Be kind to yourself.

Hi dizzy today is going to be a better day, I woke up feeling more positive, and I think that what most people have said is that there will be good days and bad ones, and I have to accept that.
The sitation with my mum, and her home is a nightmare. My dad worked in engineering, and not long before we found out he had cancer he lost his job, and had to take one working nights on a lot less money. The situation got worse, and then he just could'nt work at all when he became too ill. Unfortunately he had cancelled the life cover on the mortgage when things got tight, two months before he was diagnosed !
There is only me to take mum to all the appointments, my older brother lives about 20 miles away, and runs his own company, and my younger sisters either work or are still at school.
I don't mind this, and at least I feel useful, but it can really stress me out, and I worry about this constantly.

I'm glad that it seems normal to feel jelous of older people, catweazle and hope that this will pass. I see my grandparents (dads ) every week and don't feel like this with them, and I know how mean it is to feel this way, and really don't like myself for this.
I can talk about my dad now some days with a smile, its just the bad days which there seem to many of that I struggle with.

I am going to try harder to remember my lovely dad before cancer got him, and block out how thin and sad he looked at the end.

At least I can take some comfort from knowing that my dad knew how much I loved him, and like you mentioned earlier dizzy, wherever he is now he is no longer in pain and suffering, he is free from all that.

Thanks girls xxx

glad you're feeling more positive yorkiemom, just remember be kind to yourself - one step at a time is a huge achievement

I now have mothers day to cope with but shall focus on me being a mum to the girls rather than not having one myself iyswim?