Losing both parents young

[Isabellaswann]

Hopefully my thread title won’t put people in mind of Oscar Wilde, but is anyone else in this position?

Although I was 17 so still technically a child when my mum died, I was 33 and an adult when I lost my dad. Just the same, I feel disconnected from many people around my age. I remember a couple of weeks after losing my dad one of my colleagues only a couple of years younger than me lost a grandparent and I felt a brief resentment people her age still had grandparents to lose - mine all died when I was a child.

I don’t have any family at all and I feel lonely sometimes. Can anyone relate?

Yes, i can.
I lost my mother when i was a child, my sister and my father in my early twenties. I have had moments like you when I hear of people having grandparents, i keep this to myself and I feel like crap for even thinking it.
I think the grief hit hard on my wedding day and when my children were born. I felt there was nobody to share these moments with.
Its a consolation that I am not the only one to feel like this...sorry for your loss

My mum died when I was 4 and I never knew my bio father so I get get what you mean.
It also hit me hard when I got married and had my children and had no immediate family to turn to.

Yes it is really difficult - especially when people react with astonishment and surprise.

Yeah - I lost my mum at 23 and my dad at 34. A lot of people in my family either died young or died without having kids, so a big family has whittled down to me, my estranged brother, and a couple of older relatives who live in another country. I’m also single with no kids, so it’s pretty much me.

It’s very strange at first, especially, as you say, your peers still have parents and even grandparents and just can’t relate. I did a lot of reading about bereavement, which helped. I’m the worst kind of catholic - pro-choice, pro-divorce, pro-sex-before marriage etc, but I do believe in God and Heaven, and sometimes went to Mass just to have some quiet time to think about my parents and talk to them I guess.

On the plus side, I think it helped being with my parents when they actually died. It is a privilege and probably the most profound moments of my life. I don’t take any day for granted, and that influences how I live my life. I don’t sweat the small stuff and very rarely feel scared - I’ve already had my “worst days”. I’m now 48, pretty content with life. I think of my parents often, with a smile, and if the experience of losing parents has taught me anything, it’s to do something you want to do NOW. My parents had a long list of things they wanted to do in retirement and never got there, and I’m determined that won’t happen to me.

Mine did as well - my dad especially would fuss a lot about pensions. It seems pointless now.

One of the most difficult things to my head around was people who I would have considered to be friends started avoiding me after my father died.
I never spoke to them about his illness or death but I think they chose to avoid me just in case I did.

I lost my mom, dad, nan and grandad over the space of 10 months. I'm an only child and only remaining grandparent contested the will and turned what distant remaining family I have against me so I definitely understand the loneliness. I met up with one of my aunties years later and she tried to explain my mans grief losing her daughter and that it is harder for her than me - I stood up and walked away after told her grief can't be measured not only do I grieve for what I have lost I also grieve for what I never had. My dad didn't walk me down the aisle, my mom didn't get to help pick out wedding dresses, I am currently 31 weeks pregnant and no motherly advice of what's to come. I don't think any one can understand that unless they live it. My mom taught me positivity and the good thing I see that has come out of it is I'm fiercely independent now, I rely on no one but myself and my husband. I have friends who are older and parents still bail them out financially ect it's not much but I'm proud of what I've become through the loss we suffered