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My mother died of strep when I was 2 and father at age 5 of heart attack leaving five of us with oldest brother 18.I always have wondered what life would have been like,mother was a teacher.
In those days no help of any kind.
Eighteen year old was drafted into World war Two.
Bio dad- died in 2008. Wept for the father he never lived up to.
My mother-2012. Utterly devastated.
My champion. My confidante.
Life does not go back. Changed so.much .
Miss her dearly . Accept my mortality.
Less passionate in keeping up.with the jones.
More passionate in moments money can't buy. And there have been many.
Even those will die in my memory.
Wash and rinse.
I just pray that I don't die unloved...yet I sense I will. And that's the sad part - as the saying goes..
To the world you may just be one person.
But to one person you may be there world.
My mom was my world...when she passed. I just became a being... insignificant. That's mortality.
I do wonder why I don't "feel" more! What does that mean!
Only you can answer that. But if they showed you very little affection (your words), you may have suffered emotional neglect.
Biodad died of his third heart attack in 2000. All I felt was deep, blessed relief. Finally my mother would stop harassing me into buying Father's Day, birthday and Christmas gifts for him. Her efforts were "rewarded" a few years earlier when (I don't know what I was thinking) I took my boyfriend to the family reunion. My father showed up and started unloading every gift I had given him over the years except for the ones that were too bulky to carry. "If you show up at the house afterwards, you can take those with you, too."
Who does that? Who humiliates his adult daughter in front of dozens of people? Was there anyone there who didn't know he was an alcoholic and crappy excuse for a dad? This was the man who publicly referred to his daughters as his "wife's hobby."
So yeah, something changed. He and biomom could no longer use me as a football. Not that she isn't trying. At 90, she still thinks I'll allow her access to me.
I was 31 when my mom died, which is comparatively young, but she had been suffering from Lewy Body dementia for eight years and it had been nearly that long since she and I had been able to even have a conversation. When she finally passed, I felt a sense of relief that her soul was no longer trapped in a body that didn't work. For myself, I had mourned her loss years before.
My dad died two years ago when I was 49. Although he was 94 and his body was failing, he was mentally sharp until the very end. Unfortunately he lived over a thousand miles away and saw him only about once a year, though we talked on the phone sometimes. I miss him, but it's not a sharp pain. He was 94 and had lived a long, full life. It felt like it was time.
Most of all I regret that my kids never knew their grandmother and only knew their grandfather in his old age. He shared many interests with my oldest daughter and the two of them would have had a lot to talk about, if he'd been younger. I feel that they and I missed out because I was born so late in my parents' life. Most people my age still have at least one parent if not both, and most kids the age of my children still have grandparents.
But did something change in me when they died, not really. I had not been "parented" for a very long time.
My mother, the "nice" parent died in 1994. That was very hard. Our father is 95 and living in an ALF since last August. Whoever said
the "difficult" parent will live the longest knew what they were talking about.
After my mother died, my dad moved to an assisted living facility for 2 years then had to go to a nursing home where he died almost 2 years later. I visited him just about every day, at least 3 times a day (if I wasn't there to watch Pat and Vanna with him, I was in big trouble!!) for those 4 years. In the last few weeks, I wasn't sure if he knew I was there all the time, but I still sat there with him, even for all 30 minutes of Wheel of Fortune. Sunday was the one day I didn't cook breakfast. I'd run by to visit him then pick up "McBreakfast" on the way home. For a few Sundays after he passed away, I caught myself about halfway to the nursing home before it dawned on me that he wasn't there any more. I did the same thing around 6:30 some afternoons (time for Wheel). It really hit me hard. He died the day before Halloween. I didn't really feel like decorating for Christmas, or doing anything for Christmas, that year. But we were getting a rare visit from my grandkids, so that helped perk me up a little.
I grieve at the tremendous amount of unresolved pain expressed in the above posts.
The task of parents is to raise offspring and allow them to grow and mature until there is "individuation." The term is Jungian, but the gist of it is that by the time the parents die, the offspring are fully functioning adults that no longer have need of parental guidance.
When parents die before that task is complete, there is a void. When parents are incapable, because of their own issues, to complete that task, there is a void and anger from the offspring.
We treat parents as having an omniscience that they never can be capable of. We have difficulty seeing our own parents as simply couples who had children, and may not have been prepared or even capable of the tasks required to raise them.
My parents had serious issues. As I have grown, I have recognized more and more that those issues were more hurtful to them than they ever could be to me. There are events that I hate, there are failings that even today stun me. At the same time, I recognize that I am the one who determines my life as an adult. To not be able to do so would mean that I was still an unfinished child.
I grieve at the tremendous amount of unresolved pain expressed in the above posts.
The task of parents is to raise offspring and allow them to grow and mature until there is "individuation." The term is Jungian, but the gist of it is that by the time the parents die, the offspring are fully functioning adults that no longer have need of parental guidance.
When parents die before that task is complete, there is a void. When parents are incapable, because of their own issues, to complete that task, there is a void and anger from the offspring.
We treat parents as having an omniscience that they never can be capable of. We have difficulty seeing our own parents as simply couples who had children, and may not have been prepared or even capable of the tasks required to raise them.
My parents had serious issues. As I have grown, I have recognized more and more that those issues were more hurtful to them than they ever could be to me. There are events that I hate, there are failings that even today stun me. At the same time, I recognize that I am the one who determines my life as an adult. To not be able to do so would mean that I was still an unfinished child.
That is such a deep and wise post that sums things up so well, harry chickpea!
I expected to feel "adrift" but I felt almost nothing.
It's really weird! My parents were great providers, kind and sweet, but very old-school, so very little affection or positive reinforcement. I appreciated them very much, but I wouldn't say we were close.
I felt almost nothing when they died, 3 years apart. Like many, mom lingered in misery those last 3 years and we were all glad when she got to "go home". Our dad had an immediate heart attack, the way we'd all like to go, still kickin' till the last minute.
I do wonder why I don't "feel" more! What does that mean!
I felt the same way as you in some respects. My father died young at 53 when I was 25. My mother died 4 years later at the same age (53). Both deaths were very unexpected. Although my parents were never demonstrative and I don't remember hugs and I love yous being said, they really weren't bad parents. I just never felt real closeness with them.
To this day, I sometimes feel guilty for not thinking about them all the time, for not posting tributes to them on Facebook (like everyone else does all the time). I even sometimes get annoyed with all the "thinking of you in heaven" and every mother's and father's day all the "I love you and miss you" posts. I really feel cold-hearted for not missing them.
I felt the same way as you in some respects. My father died young at 53 when I was 25. My mother died 4 years later at the same age (53). Both deaths were very unexpected. Although my parents were never demonstrative and I don't remember hugs and I love yous being said, they really weren't bad parents. I just never felt real closeness with them.
To this day, I sometimes feel guilty for not thinking about them all the time, for not posting tributes to them on Facebook (like everyone else does all the time). I even sometimes get annoyed with all the "thinking of you in heaven" and every mother's and father's day all the "I love you and miss you" posts. I really feel cold-hearted for not missing them.
I think if you were truly cold-hearted you wouldn't be feeling guilt.
You were a young adult, building a life and making your way in the world, when each of your parents passed. It sometimes happens that commonality of experiences brings adult children closer to a parent than they ever felt as a child. But you never had the chance to compare child-raising notes with your parents. You were an orphan before 30.
Perhaps if they had lived they would have turned into one of those couples who goes gaga over their grandchildren.
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