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I am fortunate that my parents are still alive. My father is 75 and my mother is 72. My father has really slowed down for the last year and most days he is zoned into the television. My father used to be always in the kitchen preparing a nice steak and reading the paper. These days my mom prepares his frozen dinners and he is just quiet.
It's a sad state to watch one's parents age. I am just curious, to the ones who parent(s) passed how old were you? How did it happen? I guess lately seeing my dad these thoughts start coming up. I moved to this city to be closer to them but lately my future is coming up...what will it be like without my parents.
My mom died when I was 46. We were not super close, She was messed up and pretty awful when I was a teen, but she suddenly turned back into a terrific person when I was about 40. She had some kind of chemical imbalance that made her crazy and they finally figured out how to fix it.
My dad is almost 87, He is still doing pretty well. I would bet he will see 90, maybe older. He did a lot of unhealthy things (like spraying our apple trees with toxic chemicals with inadequate protection (lots of DDT early on), and working in a lab that was often filled with exhaust fumes (He was a diesel engineer), and horrible eating habits, like putting three teaspoons of sugar in his tea then just eating a fourth teaspoon of sugar), no smoking or drinking though), but he grew up on a farm so he ate pure foods and was strong as an ox. HE is pretty frail and so stiff it takes him five minutes to get out of a chair, but he still delivers meals on wheels (to people younger than him), maintains 3 acres, serves as CEO of a food bank, is an officer in the church, and does some other charity work, plus he sometimes takes care of the neighbors 10 or so acres because the lady who lived there is in the hospital (permanently). I think all that activity keeps him strong. Once people start sitting around doing nothing, they seem to die pretty quickly.
I am fortunate that my parents are still alive. My father is 75 and my mother is 72. My father has really slowed down for the last year and most days he is zoned into the television. My father used to be always in the kitchen preparing a nice steak and reading the paper. These days my mom prepares his frozen dinners and he is just quiet.
It's a sad state to watch one's parents age. I am just curious, to the ones who parent(s) passed how old were you? How did it happen? I guess lately seeing my dad these thoughts start coming up. I moved to this city to be closer to them but lately my future is coming up...what will it be like without my parents.
There is aging, and then there is improper or incomplete care of medical issues, which can appear to others as "aging" when it is in fact disease or imbalances. There also environmental changes that throw older people off routines. With your dad - there are very few newspapers these days and those that survive are pale shadows. Once the body starts into the last third of life the need for food as fuel drops, making a steak too much, and less of interest than something smaller. For those of us who grew up with childhoods in the 1940s and 1950s and went through the Vietnam era and introspection, a lot of us never expected the U.S. to be where it is and are frankly disappointed. Being quiet can be a reflection of that and realization that things will be as they will be.
Dig for his interests. When you find one or two that you can have interest in make that connection. You will both benefit.
Watching loved ones age is not a sad state, but a recognition of the roundness of life and a celebration of the different ways we are taught to live and gain insight. Watching illness is not a celebration, but a testament of strength.
I was about 33 when my mom died. She had been a quiet hardworking schoolteacher who put up with a lot. About two years before she reached that retirement age of 65, she developed a disease that severely limited her abilities to enjoy life and shortened what was an expected long retirement to a very brief one.
Women generally are impacted more when their parents die, as the connections are usually much stronger. By the time my mom died I had moved a few times, was out of state, and working 60 hour work weeks. I barely had time to pee, much less maintain family relations and be able to do much more than attend the funeral. As much as anything, my take-away from the experience was to not let my employer run over me, and recognize that life has to be lived to the fullest in the moment, not in some fantasy of a future that might never happen.
Every experience of loss is different. Kudos to you for being able to move closer and have the connections.
I was 51 when my dad died and I was 50 when my mother died . She did not even know I was there , nothing new there . My dad died from cancer and could barely breathe when the end came . Both of them died within months of each other and I was with my dad when he went too but I had been out of state for awhile so we did not live close .
My dad died when I was around 15 and mom passed about 20 years ago. It's not easy when your parents die, not only do you miss them but it puts you in a whole different mind set. That's when I started to really consider my own mortality. Before mom died I never gave that a second thought. All my aunts and uncles are gone too. For my son's wedding I had no relatives to invite.
I do have some cousins my age in other states but we only keep in contact through FB occasionally.
I was 26 when adoptive father died of alcoholism. Adoptive mother died when I was 52 but we had been estranged for years before that as she had dementia and lived 1000 + miles away. Birth father died about three years ago and birth mother is still alive at 86. Birth mother is also 1000+ miles away and I have not been able to see her due to a hoarding situation on both her and half sister that lives with her. Sad but we tried to get her to come live with us in her own home. We were going to buy a duplex for all of us. No cost to her. She refused.
Both my parents lived long enough for me to be well into my 40s but they spent years in a nursing home toward the end. I miss them both but my dad especially as I get older. I begin to understand and appreciate him better. My wife's mom died when she was a teenager, age 14 I think.
There is something called "The Late Orphan Project" that encourages people to write about the loss of their parents after they reached adulthood. There are two volumes of essays published that cover a wide range of experiences with loss as well as the dynamics of surviving adult siblings dealing with loss. (Full disclosure...I'm in one of the volumes.) With my parents in a nursing home (my mom for seven years) it was a slow and prolonged goodbye.
All my aunts and uncles are gone and a couple cousins have died or just disappeared. The last family reunion was in the 1990s. Everyone is scattered from California and Arizona to Georgia. Probably 1/3 or less still live in the St. Louis area...the home town. My older brother is now the "patriarch" of the whole family...that seems very odd.
My mother died when I was 22. I have experienced most of my life without her. It had a profound impact upon me, and also upon my siblings, age 21, 20, and 17 at the time.
It feels like a lifetime ago, and in many ways, it is. I went into therapy, and managed to move on, and to marry, soon after. One of my sisters literally never got over her death. She inserts my mother into conversations where she does not belong, as though she has been gone since 1980. It is maddening, and she refuses to seek help. We live in different states, and I called her on her birthday several days ago, and she rambled on about her version of "mommy" and what she would have done in a particular situation. She has seen therapists through out the years, and always ends the counseling abruptly when one of them says anything with which she disagrees.
The problem is, my mother has been gone for over 35 years, and she has been replaced by a perfect and equally fictions woman. If I attempt to inject the truth into one of these tired monologues, she quickly shuts me down or ends the conversation.
My father quickly remarried his secretary, who was mainly in it for the money. She did her best to keep us away from him. He willingly cooperated, and is not with out blame.
He passed in December of 2016, when I was in my 50s. I expected his death. I was sad and for a brief time, however, he had been ill for a long time, and his quality of life in his late 80s , was severely compromised.
He was a man of means and while still lucid, he assured all of us that we were in his will. He also spoke to me personally about money he had set aside for my sisters and I, especially my sister who is has emotional problems.
He wanted her to be "taken care of for life".
Shortly after his death, his wife left me with a PO Box and essentially, went off the grid.
None of us ever received anything. I believe his wife is living in their ski house in upstate NY, after transferring the house ownership to her son.
My mother died when I was 22. I have experienced most of my life without her. It had a profound impact upon me, and also upon my siblings, age 21, 20, and 17 at the time.
It feels like a lifetime ago, and in many ways, it is. I went into therapy, and managed to move on, and to marry, soon after. One of my sisters literally never got over her death. She inserts my mother into conversations where she does not belong, as though she has been gone since 1980. It is maddening, and she refuses to seek help. We live in different states, and I called her on her birthday several days ago, and she rambled on about her version of "mommy" and what she would have done in a particular situation. She has seen therapists through out the years, and always ends the counseling abruptly when one of them says anything with which she disagrees.
The problem is, my mother has been gone for over 35 years, and she has been replaced by a perfect and equally fictions woman. If I attempt to inject the truth into one of these tired monologues, she quickly shuts me down or ends the conversation.
My father quickly remarried his secretary, who was mainly in it for the money. She did her best to keep us away from him. He willingly cooperated, and is not with out blame.
He passed in December of 2016, when I was in my 50s. I expected his death. I was sad and for a brief time, however, he had been ill for a long time, and his quality of life in his late 80s , was severely compromised.
He was a man of means and while still lucid, he assured all of us that we were in his will. He also spoke to me personally about money he had set aside for my sisters and I, especially my sister who is has emotional problems.
He wanted her to be "taken care of for life".
Shortly after his death, his wife left me with a PO Box and essentially, went off the grid.
None of us ever received anything. I believe his wife is living in their ski house in upstate NY, after transferring the house ownership to her son.
It's a sad situation.
That is a terrible thing for your dad's wife to do. If the estate went through probate, his will should be on record and you can access it (anyone can - public record). Have you considered representation from a lawyer? Something fishy may be going on even if there was no will at all because as his children you would have received a percentage in NY.
I was in my mid-60s when my parents died. I was very lucky as they were quite healthy and lucid until their passing.
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