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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Recently Lost a Parent
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Squirrel
Shipmate
# 3040
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Posted
I'd like to limit this thread to those of us who have recently suffered the death of a natural or adoptive parents, because I think there is something unique about these losses.
From 2010 until May of this year we had been caring for my father, who had dementia and other disorders. In fact, I was the one who began the "Aging Parents" thread several years ago. Over that time I watched my father slip further and further into cognitive decline, becoming more and more helpless until there was no option but to put him in a nursing home about two years ago. While he received good care there (a rarity in his area) my father quickly regressed to an almost childlike state. I visited him regularly, bringing junk food, which was the only thing he'd eat and listening to him repeat himself. Still, whatever be the state of his brain, he was Dad, and I was your typical Italian-American kid (albeit 60), viewing it as both a duty and privilege to care for him.
In May, my father finally entered eternal rest, after his kidneys went. I'd never seen somebody die before. Nurses tell me there is a "smell of death," and I got to experience it. Friends came to the funeral, cards were written, then, almost as soon as it happened, POOF! silence. Now, three months later, I am starting to feel the absence, not only of my father, but all of my other deceased relatives and friends. Seems like Dad was the tipping point.
What has been your experience?
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"The moral is to the physical as three is to one."
- Napoleon
"Five to one."
- George S. Patton
Posts: 1014 | From: Gotham City - Brain of the Great Satan | Registered: Jul 2002
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Pangolin Guerre
Shipmate
# 18686
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Posted
Well, not recent, but the fifth anniversary of my mother's death will be this Sunday. My experience was not precisely yours, but pretty close.
I have always felt the presence of the dead (not mystically, usually, but just daily memories), but I did find that this was somewhat amplified with my mother's death. My sister and I had all the bureaucratic stuff cued in anticipation of the inevitable. By noon on the day of her death, all the relevant parties had been contacted and things were in train. I had already done my mourning, so things were fine. It was two weeks later that I collapsed in my kitchen, a wailing mess. So, not as together as I thought. Ha!
In a bizarre, paradoxical way, I have come to find rather a comfort in the dead. I miss her daily, but she isn't absent. I think that, with time, you'll find the same thing with your father. At the oddest times, he'll come to mind so vividly that he is with you. A few weeks ago I was sitting in my local, reading the paper, and ran across a line that reminded me of my mother in such a way that I was laughing uncontrollably. I swear that she was sitting beside me. Your bereavement is still fresh - and as I said to a friend whose mother died a little before mine, we don't "get over it", we "get through it" - but gradually you'll emerge on the other side.
![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif)
Posts: 758 | From: 30 arpents de neige | Registered: Nov 2016
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
My father died in January this year. My mother was determined not to survive him, and died a mere 99 days after. Fortunately they had been steadily organizing and downsizing their lives over a period of years, moving from a large house to a small one and then into assisted living, so there was a minimum of clearing up to be done after.
Immediately my mother was gone however my health has declined; I have only just dodged knee surgery and may well face it in future. All the weird drugs are making my skin bruise and my gums bleed. It's as if my body, knowing that I am now the oldest generation, has to have something to show it.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
My father died a year ago today. I still miss him bitterly.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
I think of my in-laws all the time who I very close to, held them as they died. Tried to help with their fears. I think of my mother whose funeral I had to do, as a lay person. Something of this, and my 2 closest friends who also died, is in my head, dreams and feelings every day.
It's like a death awareness epiphany which can't be reversed and I yearn to return to life before this melancholy seized my soul. I am learning to accept it over time. There are some additional tragedies in my life that seem to ring along with them and I wonder about sorrow being an organizing principle of life. -- time to make tea after writing this
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Squirrel
Shipmate
# 3040
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Posted
People try to be helpful, but when they offer platitudes it backfires.
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"The moral is to the physical as three is to one."
- Napoleon
"Five to one."
- George S. Patton
Posts: 1014 | From: Gotham City - Brain of the Great Satan | Registered: Jul 2002
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Barnabas Aus
Shipmate
# 15869
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Posted
My father died twenty years ago this month. I was deeply involved in the funeral arrangements, and the organisation of a care placement for my mother who had suffered a paralysing stroke five years before, along with all the paperwork as co-executor of his estate. I thought I was managing well.
Some weeks later, we had a parish mission. At the Saturday evening eucharist prior to the close of the mission on Sunday, our then trainee priest preached on his relationship with his father, which brought me near to tears. On the Sunday morning, it was my duty to thank the missioner, through which I struggled. Then, at lunch, as I was talking with my family and the missioner, the dam broke, and all of the pent-up emotion overflowed, and I was in floods of tears. I was brought home, went to bed and slept for hours, as all of that stress was relieved.
Be aware that you will go through stages, and that anniversaries, birthdays and other events will trigger emotional responses. This a healthy reaction. I still think of both my parents and their probable reactions to the ways in which their great-grandchildren are now growing and of how proud they would have been of my children as wonderful parents.
Posts: 375 | From: Hunter Valley NSW | Registered: Sep 2010
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Lothlorien
Ship's Grandma
# 4927
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Posted
Barnabas, it is so true about things triggering emotional responses. My dad also died twenty years ago last March. I had been morose and quite down for several days but had been unable to pinpoint why until I looked and saw the next day was the anniversary of his death. My brain had dredged this up and I had been affected without even realising why.
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Buy a bale. Help our Aussie rural communities and farmers. Another great cause needing support The High Country Patrol.
Posts: 9745 | From: girt by sea | Registered: Aug 2003
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Uncle Pete
Loyaute me lie
# 10422
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Posted
If I can chip in...though Dad died 50 years ago and Mother 30, pain diminishes, loss remains. Or so I like to think. Then some wire trips, memories surface and I am momentarily overwhelmed with grief. Some times it passes, sometimes it lingers on for days. Now I am long past the age when Dad died, and nearly as old as Mother was, and contemplating my own mortality.
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Even more so than I was before
Posts: 20466 | From: No longer where I was | Registered: Sep 2005
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
I read a book by a man whose father died before his first birthday; his mother never remarried. He said he grew up, not with 'the absence of presence' but 'the presence of absence'.
My husband died when our daughters were teenagers, and we lived with the presence of absence. The presence was very strong and always with us.
It wasn't until I read that phrase in the book that I realized that that was what we experienced.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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sabine
Shipmate
# 3861
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Posted
We lost mother this past March. I think dealing with her estate has been as stressful (and sometimes as sad) as anything.
My sister and I are on retreat at an Archabbey this weekend, 3 hours by car to get there. Plenty of time to talk about it.
sabine
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"Hunger looks like the man that hunger is killing." Eduardo Galeano
Posts: 5887 | From: the US Heartland | Registered: Dec 2002
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simontoad
Ship's Amphibian
# 18096
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Posted
My Dad died two and a bit years ago. He also lived with dementia and was in a nursing home for about a year before he died.
I loved my Dad, but I have a stronger relationship with my Mum, who is doing well. I felt the weight of Dad's mostly unspoken expectations and my guilt at not meeting them. Now, I can see how similar we are: a delight in inappropriate humour; a playfulness; a loving loyalty. My best qualities are his.
My sister, who had the reverse set of relationships with our parents feels the loss quite deeply. She is still mourning him in at times painful ways I think.
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Human
Posts: 1571 | From: Romsey, Vic, AU | Registered: May 2014
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Piglet
Islander
# 11803
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Posted
My mother died five years ago, but for the last ten years of her life was in the geriatric ward of the local hospital, and for most of that time really wasn't very aware of what was going on round her.
When she died, my father seemed much calmer than we might have expected: I think he did his grieving when she went into hospital, and although his whole life was centred round visiting her every day, he'd become used to her absence from the house.
We wondered if he'd get a new lease of life after she died, without having the duty of visiting her, but it rather went the other way: his whole raison d'être disappeared, and within a few years he was taken into the local old people's home, where he is now.
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I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander.
alto n a soprano who can read music
Posts: 20272 | From: Fredericton, NB, on a rather larger piece of rock | Registered: Sep 2006
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Have people had vivid dreams of the departed one? I had one just the other day, about 3 months after my mother passed. My parents were at my house, and we were eating noodles. I wonder what it means?
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Tree Bee
Ship's tiller girl
# 4033
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Have people had vivid dreams of the departed one? I had one just the other day, about 3 months after my mother passed. My parents were at my house, and we were eating noodles. I wonder what it means?
I cherish those dreams.
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"Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple."
— Woody Guthrie
http://saysaysay54.wordpress.com
Posts: 5257 | From: me to you. | Registered: Feb 2003
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Pangolin Guerre
Shipmate
# 18686
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Posted
My mother figured/s largely in my dreams both before and after her death. I went into Jungian analysis about a year after her death (going into analysis had nothing directly to do with her death - I had always intended to do it, and I had the time and money to do it), a form of analysis which most of you will know puts great currency in dreams. She was popping up in the oddest places (e.g., the lady chapel of a synagogue - yes, I know). When an aunt died, her daughter was very disturbed about dreaming about her mother, whereas I have found it a comforting feature of my dreamscape - often baffling, but comforting. I just go with it, listen, and enjoy (if that's the right word).
Posts: 758 | From: 30 arpents de neige | Registered: Nov 2016
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Pangolin Guerre
Shipmate
# 18686
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Posted
Sorry, missed the edit window.
I have found that five year on, and I dream of her no less than when she was alive. I hope that she continues being a regular cast member.
Brenda - no idea about the noodles except that for Chinese New Year they symbolise long life. Perhaps your family enjoys noodles - comfort food. As Freud said, Sometimes a noodle is just a noodle. (Or something like that.)
Posts: 758 | From: 30 arpents de neige | Registered: Nov 2016
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
In my business all dreams have significance, mainly because nobody really wants to hear about dreams. (A similar emotion is often expressed about poetry or lyrics in the text.) And thus if you're forcing your reader to read about one it had better be worthwhile.
I like to think that this curiously vivid and yet entirely mundane dream was a good message. They're doing okay, and remember the good times.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Vivid dreams of this sort are common after a death. Eating noodles--well, that's almost certainly a personal symbol of some sort, and one way of figuring out what it means might be to try free association to the word.
I'll go away now--my father died 15 years ago, so not recent.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Or eat some noodles. Smells and tastes. They associate for us in our amphibious nature, bridging between the tangible world and that within brains and spirit.
Jung has it right about some things. Having observed a cousin my father never met who, even in another language, channelled and conveyed my father. There's an eternal golden braid of us in the world, with our dreams and hopes, and the eternal. Like a tapestry where I tug a strand which pulls some generations within me, down the yards of weave.
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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