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My father died two days after Christmas, 2014. He was 86 and had a lot of health problems, including congestive heart failure, pneumonia, kidney failure and a massive silent heart attack. I was his caregiver. I watched him die from respiratory failure for 36 hours in Comfort Care at the hospital. I thought it would be the hardest thing I'd ever have to do, but now I see that living without him is the hardest thing ever. We lived in the same house together for all of my lfe (55 years). He was my best friend and my hero. I realize that I was blessed to have him with me for so long, but now for the first time in my life I am alone, no husband, no children and no friends or relatives close by. When I was growing up I was surrounded by extended family members and friends, but they gradually all died, moved away or drifted away. Almost all of my former happiness was associated with my father in some way. We enjoyed classic movies and music together almost every day, ate meals together, talked and laughed together. Even doing nothing together brought contentment. I loved him more than anything in this world. All lives have problems, but he made everything more bearable. I wish that I had never complained to him about anything. I should have just been happy he was alive and with me. Now that he's gone, I feel incredibly lonely and have little hope for the future. I don't think I will ever be as happy as I was with my dad. He is irreplaceable.
I feel a huge part of myself died with my father. I find that all the things I used to enjoy with my dad now cause me to miss him in a way I can hardly bear. In my search for consolation, I have tried four churches, two grief support groups, three therapists, three doctors and nothing seems to help.
My mother died in October, just two months prior to my dad, but she didn't raise me. My parents divorced when I was five and I was raised by my father and grandmother. I dropped out of university to take care of my grandmother and then three more elderly relatives in succession. People tell me I'm strong, because I was a caregiver for all those years, but I had my father to give me emotional support. For the last 16 years, it was only him and me here. My dad was my whole life. The movies and music that once made us so happy now make me sad and anxious, because I'll never be able to enjoy them with him again and probably not with anyone else either. For the last four months, I've hardly watched tv at all, because it's too sad sitting there alone without my dear father to keep me company.
I've tried going out with relatives and friends, but it's not convenient for them to come over very often, because they live far away. I understand, they have their own lives and loved ones who need them. I tried online dating but got contacted by dozens of scammers. I know how to detect them better now, but it's still hard to tell. One scammer had 350 different aliases.
Many times when I'm alone at night, I want to talk to someone, but there's no one I can call. People don't call me often, because they're busy working, socializing and travelling. Relatives have invited me to go on trips all over the world: Prague, Italy, Spain, France, Oregon, Alabama, Connecticut, Kentucky, Disneyland, but I don't want to go on long trips the way I feel now. A cousin took me on a short day trip to Half Moon Bay on Friday. It was pleasant, but I still thought about my father most of the time, wishing we could have travelled more together than we did. On the way home, I imagined my dad standing at the spot where he used to wait for me to walk me home from school when I was a little girl. How I long for those happy, carefree days when he and all my other beloved relatives and friends were alive. Thank you for reading this.
I clicked on your thread because, I too, miss my father although my situation is not like yours. My father died when he was 55 years old and I was in my 20s. I think of my father very often and how I just wish sometimes I could just call him like I used to. I feel lost like there is no one else in my life that I have connected with, that understands me, the way that Dad did. I am married with two children and my dad died in 1982.
I am sure your father loved you very much and that his wish for you would be for you to work through the loss and have a wonderful and fulfilled life. I know, easier said than done. I met a man a few years ago that had cared for his wife who had developed Alzhelmers. The last 3 years, they rarely got out of the house. He was a good man with a very good heart. I only met him after the death of his wife when I was out walking my dog. He enjoyed petting my dog and she would jump up in the back of his truck and sit beside him. I learned from another source, someone from his church, that he was talking about ending his own life. Everyone encouraged him to go and see a counselor at the mental health center. I talked with his daughter and she said he was just quiet and didn't talk with the kids about his feelings.
So, one day he told me "I went to see a counselor in town. You know, I didn't think it would help. I asked her what she wanted to know and she told me to just talk. I went back 3 times and I just sat and talked and you know what, it really helped." You could see the change and he started getting out and eventually he eventually even remarried. He found happiness again without any guilt.
He was obviously depressed and certainly justified to be after what he had went through. My thought and advice is to find a counselor to talk with or maybe a group. Try social services at your local hospital to see if can direct you to local services. If you have health insurance, most cover mental health services.
You have my deepest sympathy. Please get some counseling or join a group so that you make the best of the all the years you have ahead because even not knowing you or your father, by your kindness to him, I know that you have much to offer the world. My best.
Hi, OP, very lovely post, your not alone and I understand how you feel all too well. I too miss my pops for a lot of the very same reasons you have written, it took me a good long time dealing and getting used to life without my Dad, the days, months would go by until one day, I live over here in Princeton village, a very tight community, I sat down with a few old timers, friends of my dad at a coffee shop, they explained to me the hardest and best part of growing older. They said to me, Knight,
The older you get the more friends and loved ones you'll miss. It's a process. The great memories last forever.
"You miss them but you never lose them" you carry the thoughts and the fond memories of your loved ones with you everyday and you live with them forever more. That was back in 1985, very good advice, and I have never forgotten. I'm still young at (57) and my brother just passed on Jan 3rd two day shy of the day my dad passed on Jan 5th and on the same day as my uncle passed two years before on Jan 3rd, the same day.
Sometimes, I miss my family and friends and I talk to them in my prayers and in my sleep, I explain how I feel and how much I miss them all, one day I feel asleep, before getting ready to go out to dinner with my friends, in my dreams, my dad smiled at me and said, not soon, not soon, but one day will all be together again.
It's been good for me every since, I live my life to make my family proud, loving life and living large. All we can do is to keep pushing forward with loving memories of our loved ones in our hearts and in our minds, to have that in itself is truly a blessing. Keep the faith, try to stay strong for your dad and thank you for being such a caregiver and live happy with your fond memories.
OP~I will experience what you are now someday. My Mother died in 2007, a year later my Dad built a house on an acre of his property and I moved in.
I see him daily, pay the bills, change the sheets, his health is good for 86. When he is gone, there will be me, 2 lovely houses, 10 acres. When things are routine, like going over at a certain time or calling at a certain time, whether it's daily, weekly or whatever, when that is gone, it's strangling.
I still experience this as a caregiver for a woman that passed away in October. A certain time on the clock, a certain TV program will trigger the memories of her. My Dad and I still experience this with my Mom, things that trigger memories. Those will never go away OP.
Many thanks for your very kind posts, everyone. MY heartfelt sympathy for the loss of your loved ones.
I have tried counseling and grief support groups. Surprisingly, there are very few free grief support groups within San Francisco for general grief. Most are geared towards teenagers, loss of a child, suicide, divorce and pet loss. I don't drive, so it's hard for me to get out of town. In January, I tried a free drop-in grief support group offered by Hospice by the Bay, but the group was cancelled, because they wanted a minimum of 8 people to continue and there were only four of us. I only got to attend one session. Then I tried a grief support group at St. Mary's Cathedral, which was very good, but it only meets once a month. I missed the last two sessions, because of my chronic insomnia.
Some of my best therapy I have received from cab drivers. One of them could be a motivational speaker. He said he used to be a trainer at a gym. Five years ago, his father died, his wife divorced him and he lost his house all at the same time. He now supports his mother and his three children. Running and shouting as needed, helped him to work through his grief. He said I should talk to him instead of the therapists, but he didn't give me his number and I was too shy to ask for it.
I've seen three therapists already. The first was a young female social worker. She had never experienced the death of a parent or a midlife existential crisis. After several sessions, when I was crying, she handed me a box of tissues and said that I was still very emotional and probably depressed. I kept wondering when the cognitive behavioral therapy would begin, but the 45 minute sessions are too short for me, because I tend to ramble on, as you can see. When I caught her stifling a yawn, I decided to try someone else. The next therapist was a former prison chaplain who obviously has gotten a bit cynical from hanging around convicts. When I told him that several people have told me that my father's spirit is in the house with me, the "minister" answered, "Bull$%#&!". After I had spent $400 for seven sessions, he joked that I should be paying him the full rate ($150/50 min) for the insight he's given me. I told him I needed to take a break from therapy to get my house in order. He didn't even answer my email. Not a good way to build my self esteem, which he had said was one of his objectives.
The third therapist I tried was an 82 year old psychologist who I was willing to pay out of pocket, $150/50 min, if he could help me. I thought surely he would have the education and experience to figure out something that could help me. Luckily, the first consultation was free. He told me that my problem is that I don't love myself, and that to love anybody else, I have to first love myself. I asked him, "Are you saying I didn't love my father?" He got annoyed and said I didn't go there to argue with him -- that I have to believe what he's telling me or I'm not going to feel better. I didn't go back, because he wasn't very warm or polite. I'm just looking for a little kindness and empathy. When I told my own half brother, a former Stephen Minister, that I feel guilty that there was something I did or something I didn't do that caused my father's death, he said that that was the devil making me think that way. I didn't find that very comforting. The chief exorcist of SF, who used to know St. Padre Pio, presided at my father's funeral. If I were possessed by the devil, I think he would have noticed.
I have asked Medi-Cal to assign me a new therapist, but it's been three weeks already and still no call. I asked for a middle age or older woman this time, and was told that they don't have any, because most therapists retire or move into private practice. I could only find two therapists online who accept Medi-Cal. I contacted the closer one and she told me she had no openings. None of the therapists listed by Medi-Cal have reviews or any information about them.
I think some mental health professionals think that grief is not serious. It may feel like clinical depression but it's not. That's basically what the nurse practitioner told me, when I went to the ER back in January for anxiety. I wanted some Ambien to sleep, because I had run out, but she wouldn't give it to me, because I had already taken it for a year. The doctor who had prescribed it suggested I switch to melatonin which only helped a little. The nurse wouldn't give me anything and put a note on my record that I am not to be prescribed Ambien. So I went to a drop-in clinic and was given Seroquel which made me drowsy but didn't help me sleep. Seroquel is known on the street as "Baby Heroin" which scared me. Then another doctor prescribed Ativan and Xanax. I took only the Ativan for a couple of months, but got worried when I read that benzos are more addictive than heroin. After suffering through withdrawal, I managed to wean myself off the Ativan. I'm not taking any meds now, and still not sleeping well, but my anxiety is less than before.
I pray for my dad every night. I wake up thinking about him. I sometimes dream about him. In one early dream I was calling for him and then he appeared. I was so happy to see him alive, then I awoke and I realized it was just a dream. My cousin has the psychic ability to see our relatives when they pass over. She told me that the night my father died, she had a dream in which she saw my dad in a beautiful forest. He looked younger and healthy. He told her, "I'm ok. I'm good to go." He asked her to take care of me. In the last four months she has visited me twice. The last time we were having lunch at the Old Clam House and I told her that she of all people could understand what I'm going through, because her mother has lived with her all of her life. She started crying and said, everything was going great until I said that. So now I don't complain about my grief anymore to her. She's too close to the situation. She said that she would rather die first than to see her mother die. I replied that I'm glad my dad went first. I wouldn't wish this loneliness on anybody. I didn't tell her this, but there were times when I wasn't there with him at the hospital, because I had to sleep and there was no one to cover for me. Not even she or her mother came to visit my dad at the hospital, because ny cousin was having health problems herself. Her mother could have seen him with her other daughter, but she said she wanted to remember her brother the way he looked at my mother's funeral two months earlier.
The night my dad had his heart attack, the doctor didn't even tell me until the following morning that he had been suffering too much. I wish I could have been there through the night to comfort him, before they put him on the ventilator under sedation. He was weaned off the ventilator four days later. I thought he would be safe in the ICU, but twice after that I found him in distress with no one around to help him. The second time, I found him begging for air, water and God's mercy. The cannula had fallen out and his oxygen saturation was low. When he saw me, he thanked me profusely. It broke my heart to see my normally stoic father so anxious. I had to tell the nurse to put him back on a mask, because he was breathing through his mouth and not getting enough air. I resolved to never leave his side again for more than five minutes, but he only lived for 36 more hours. When I finally fell asleep in the chair, his spirit left this world. I think he had waited for me to fall asleep.
The good thing about Comfort Care is that removing the nasal gastric tube helped him breathe better and the morphine also eased his breathing. I am so thankful for those last moments of peace when he was his normal, calm self again. His last words before he lost consciousness were, "Michael is going to get tired." Michael was the RN who had saved his life two years earlier, during another case of hospital/doctor neglect, but that is another story.....
You have written a mouthful. End of life issues are freighted with sadness and guilt. We each check and recheck our actions in hindsight but they are in the past, can't be amended and we all did the best that we could for our aged loved ones with the resources and information that we had at the time. That our best wasn't good enough to stave off pain, anxiety and the end of life is the reality that we all live with.
Your grief is really fresh and you've had a huge loss. It will take a lot of time and actively working through your grief to get to a better place. I suggest that it's too soon to begin searching for another male companion (dating) and if at all possible explore finding a few women your age or slightly older to build a posse to help you through the inevitable loneliness of your situation. I have to confess that even though I'm well married and my DH is wonderful, my grief is mostly mine to experience alone so your friends can't begin to function as a grief counselor or partner. Your friends are to build new experiences with, to rebuild your life as it will be in the future rather than to help you with your grief work.
I understand your frustration with the lack of community and your experiences with your counselors but I suggest that you try again until you find the fit that you need. Stick with a promising group for a few sessions before moving on. Not all groups or counselors are equal. When I needed counseling to work through a few issues, I was very specific in my search and though I had a couple of really good counselors over the years, (2 middle aged women, one middle aged man) I had to pass on a few that didn't "get" my issues or that were focused on their own issues such as the "love yourself" guy. I paid out of pocket for a private practice counselor because in this case you truly get what you pay for. I had fewer but more effective sessions. When you do this you must come prepared and stay focused on the feelings that you need to work through to avoid wasting time which is money. Between sessions you need to do homework which might include journaling, sorting through his items, doing the things that you once did together, finding friends, finding a group among other things. I did a lot of journalling and straight up grieving when I couldn't sleep. It would drain the emotions and would allow me at least a few hours of uninterrupted sleep afterward.
It's going to be your "work" for the near future to get to the other side of grief, a process that isn't linear nor is it ever completely over. I have been hit with grief years after the death of a loved one when I least expected it with an especially poignant reminder. Getting past grief is when your life is functional, when you are engaged and when you feel more joy than sadness even when you remember your deceased loved one. In the mean time come here. We are all experienced in grief, all in different phases.
I did a brief search for grief groups and came up with this helpful link.
Thank you so much for your very intelligent response. AK-Cathy. I just got back from my favorite Peruvian restaurant and had four Pisco Sours, so I am snookered I never had a drinking problem in my life, but grief does strange things to a person. I have a liquor cabinet full of booze which never called my attention, but this past weekend i drank a whole bottle of champagne by myself. I now understand what drives others to drink. I don't think I'm an alcoholic yet, but I can see how it starts. My dad was the captain of this ship, and now it's sinking. That is good advice about staying focused in my therapy sessiions. I wasted too much time going off on tangents with the therapists, just basking in the attention. I surprise myself at how much I can talk. I used to be such a quiet child.
On the ride home a Vietnamese cab driver suggested I get a job with Amway so I'll meet a lot of people. He can't understand why I don't have more friends and I don't understand it myself, except that I have been out of circulation for most of my life. I don't need a lot of friends. just one person who understands me is all I need to be happy.
I will check out the link you sent. Thank you so much and God bless you. I can hardly see the computer screen so I will close.
I am so sorry for your loss and the difficulty dealing with it. Hon, I am 60 yrs old and lost my momma on 1 Sept 2014. I can tell you that even at MY age, I felt like an orphan. I honestly felt a loss I never did when my dad died (1975) only because I still had my momma. It is not easy, but please do not feel that you are alone in this and do seek out a grief support group. They help. I will definitely need one once my sister, who is now in hospice, passes on. This has been a tough year for sure, and we are only human. Sometimes it helps to remain super busy, and I think my sisters needs has helped me move thru some of my momma's loss. God Bless and I will remember you in my prayers!
If your dad died in December, 2014 it has only been a few months. That is really no time at all to adjust to such a huge loss. Give yourself some time. I understand; my dad died last March and Mom in November. It was a $%&* losing both of them in a single year.
I have to say the thing that helped the most was a greif support group. I found it through the local hospice and I'll bet you $$ there are some in your area. This one is for people who have lost a parent and it met once a week for eight weeks. Being around people who REALLY understand what you are going thru and whose story may be very different or very similar to yours is extremely healing. There were a couple of counselors that managed the group. Now that it's over we are meeting once a month on our own. I highly recommend it. Best of luck to you.
Paka, I am very sorry for your loss. I lost both my parents within two months of each other, so at 55, I also feel like an orphan. I was much closer to my dad, who raised me, but I miss my mother, too, of course. I wish that I could have had a closer relationship with my mother, who was a gifted pianist and violinist, but she suffered from mental illness. I already have abandonment issues on account of my mother not being involved in my life very much. Since my father's death, I feel even more abandoned. There were also members of my family and friends who drifted away as my father's condition declined. My father was the only person who I could trust completely and now he's gone. I wish we could clone our loved ones, but even clones have their own personality, so it wouldn't be the same person.
God bless you and your loved ones. Thank you for your prayers. I will keep you in my prayers, too.
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