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I just lost my dad July 5th, my parents just came home from a camping trip and 4 hrs at home he had a heart attack. Nothing like kissing and hugging and telling your dad see ya later and getting a phone call 1 hr later that dad had a heart attack. I walked into the house or I should say hell. They were gonna quit CPR and I kept calling dad, when they stopped his pulse came back. My dad was 79, just came home from the doc with awesome health and 4 hrs later i'm without my dad, my 5 kids without grandpa and my granddaughter without her papa. I lost a daughter when she was only 5 weeks old due to a rare heart defect. It took me 3 years before I could stop saying something about her every day or cry. I was with my parents for 49 years and I also dont know how to deal with this either. All I can say is we all need to support each other at anytime. mod cut you are in my prayers. Marcie
Last edited by Sam I Am; 07-27-2012 at 02:40 AM..
Reason: please don't post email, it can be dangerous
I lost my mom in '92 and dad in '04. I am "over it" but still miss them terribly. They were my world being an only child. My mom was 75 when she died but still would cry sometimes over HER mother who died in '72. So it never goes away, you just learn to keep it down inside you for the most part. You learn how to go on with your life without that parent but you never, ever forget. The raw pain WILL subside in time. We all go through this. Some younger, some older but it is just the circle of life. It is meant to be.
I think a lot of it depends on age and circumstance.
I lost my father when he was 84 and I was just short of my 50th birthday. I certainly do miss him. However, what has not really ever been present is a great sense of grief or anguish. My father had a good life. The circumstances of his death were not bad.
I recommend someone mourning keep busy. In my case, there was much to do following his death. My father had been a successful man and getting his estate in order was a challenge. I also had to work and deal with many of the needs of my children. Than there was Mom. I had to spend a lot of time organizing her affairs, so that she could continue to live in their home. The first three months following his death were stressful because of everything that had to be done. I remember getting sick with bronchitis which I believe was largely a function of how busy and stressed that I was.
Today, when I think of Dad, my first reaction is to smile. There are so many good memories. I knew him well and I know exactly how he would want me to behave. Rather than mourn him, he would want me to spend the time with my children. He would want me to do simple things that I have a tendency to neglect, such as being better organized. He'd nag me to do more work in my yard. Its almost kind of funny.
I am not a strong believer in an afterlife. If it does exist, I'm inclined to think Dad made a decision to go do other things than hover over us. He was always the independent sort. He had no problem doing what he could to help his children and than letting go. I can imagine him finding new challenges and trusting deep down that he could count on us to manage things down here.
You won't ever stop missing your parent. However, hopefully you'll reach a point where when you think about them, you'll immediately have positive memories. You won't have a bad or empty feeling inside. The best advice that I can anyone grieving the loss of a parent is to remember the good times.
Tony, I am so very sorry for the death of your father. I lost my mom a week ago today and I have never known such pain. I never lost anyone I loved before so I had no experience with grief. It's worse than I ever could have imagined. It's like a black hole in the middle of my stomach and heart that can never be filled. Life like this really isn't worth living, but there's no alternative.
From pouring over countless grief Forums on the Internet the past few weeks, I realize that many, many people never get over the death of a parent. It could be 40 years since the parent passed away and the pain still remains.
I wish I could tell you to "just hang in there, things'll get better," but we have to face the reality that the pain is going to last a long time. After the intense pain fades, I hope what Mark said in the above post happens: one can reflect and take pleasure in the many happy memories of a lost parent.
Continuous greif is the result of continuously reliving the death.
It is a kind of self punishment.
Would you want your children to spend 30 or 40 years of their life mouning you?
OR
Would you want them to continue to life in all the joy they can find in life?
Continuous greif is the result of continuously reliving the death.
Not for me. It's continuously missing the unconditional love of a mother. I haven't spent one milesecond reliving her passing, it never occured to me. I miss HER. I don't obsess over her death.
Attempting to stereotype how people mourn is futile. How you mourn is not the way millions of others mourn and vice versa.
It will be two years August 3rd since I lost my dad. I don't feel the overwhelming anguish anymore; that has gotten better. I still miss him and I still wish I could talk to him. I still reach for my phone to call him and then realize I can't. I kept my last cell phone because it shows his last call to me on it. He called me at 6:57 am on August 2, 2010. The next afternoon, he died. I still feel bad that I didn't know he was in so much pain before he died (he had metastatic cancer but hid it from all of us; if I had known I would have gotten hospice so at least his pain would have been controlled). I also know he wouldn't want me to feel bad.
The doctor told us that if nothing else, we could take comfort in the fact that my dad died suddenly and didn't have to go through the very worst of what people with metastatic cancer go through, and that usually it is a very long painful process to death. I know that my dad was in a lot of pain, but it would have gotten worse. At least he was spared that.
With your dad, I would say take comfort in the fact that up until his death, he was living life to the fullest and didn't have to experience a period of decline before his death.
Tony, I am so very sorry for the death of your father. I lost my mom a week ago today and I have never known such pain. I never lost anyone I loved before so I had no experience with grief. It's worse than I ever could have imagined. It's like a black hole in the middle of my stomach and heart that can never be filled. Life like this really isn't worth living, but there's no alternative.
From pouring over countless grief Forums on the Internet the past few weeks, I realize that many, many people never get over the death of a parent. It could be 40 years since the parent passed away and the pain still remains.
I wish I could tell you to "just hang in there, things'll get better," but we have to face the reality that the pain is going to last a long time. After the intense pain fades, I hope what Mark said in the above post happens: one can reflect and take pleasure in the many happy memories of a lost parent.
It's really hard to get over the fact that your parent will no longer be there with you. I had a feeling something bad was going to happen with my dad when he was diagnosed. It's really hard to beat this cancer even though his tumor markers went all the way down to 256 from 70,000.
My mom was 75 when she died but still would cry sometimes over HER mother who died in '72.
When my grandmother died at 101, and I saw how lost my mom seemed -- she is the baby of a large family -- I realized you're never too old to need your mother.
My dad's been gone for 13 years, and I still miss him. Not more than a few days go by when I don't think of something I'd like to ask him or tell him. I wish he'd been able to meet my spouse. I wish he were here to watch my niece and nephew grow up. I wish he were here to take care of my mom, and that she still had him to make her laugh. But the overwhelming sorrow and emptiness have mellowed into a sad regret that he's not with us on this earth.
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After the intense pain fades, I hope what Mark said in the above post happens: one can reflect and take pleasure in the many happy memories of a lost parent.
