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Losing my Mum and Dad

Fifi73
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In April of this year my Mum was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer and died at home three weeks later. We nursed her through her last weeks with the help of district nurses and Marie Curie. It was the most painful experience of my life. Then 8 weeks later my elderly Dad took unwell and passed away due to a severe chest infection. My reason for making this post is to ask others if they can relate to my experience of grief. I have worked through these last few months and cried so much whilst trying to get through it. In the last few weeks my grief has intensified so much more and I feel it is actually getting harder as time goes on. I'm not sure whether the numbness and shock is wearing off and the enormity of my loss has just hit me. Having never went through anything like this before I suppose I'm just looking for reassurance that sometimes this awful thing gets worse before it gets easier. Thank you x

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    Hi there Fifi73,

    I'm so sorry to hear about your losses.  I have myself lost both of my parents in the space of 18 months, my dad to Covid (Jan 2021) and my mother to cancer ( May 2022).  The only advice I can give is that grief is a long journey, some days are better than others, things like birthdays and special occasions like Christmas make things feel particularly raw.  I do find that certain places and things can make me sad by reminding me of painful things that happened, and I do agree that it can feel really hard. The whole thing when I was caring for them was pretty scary and it was something that I'd never experienced before, but what keeps me going is knowing that they would want me to keep going and live a good life.

    Please be patient with yourself, don't rush how you process your feelings.  Sometimes you will feel like crying, sometimes you'll feel like laughing, but both are ok.  You sound very strong, and I wish you strengh and love especially at this time of year xx 

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    Fifi73 I am so sorry for the loss of your parents and yes I can completely understand your pain.

    My Mum passed away in May of lung cancer/covid in hospital. She was diagnosed in January and started a targeted chemo drug in March. There were suspicions of lung cancer from 2017 but they hugely neglected my mum and stopped checking her with CT scans because the nodules had not grown in 1 year. 

    My Dad went into hospital in August feeling unwell, diagnosed with T-Cell Lymphoma in September, started mild chemotherapy, treatment stopped in October and he passed away in November, his funeral is tomorrow.

    We lived with my Mum, she was my best friend my everything. I sadly don't have children so my Mum filled that gap, I haven't even started the grief of losing Mum because I have been focussed on Dad the rest of this year, only now is it starting to really hit me that she is never coming back and also grieving the loss of Dad too.

    I think your right - I think we have to go through the worse pain and grieving before we start to see the light. I don't believe we will ever truly stop grieving our loved ones, how can we? We just over time, I think, become more use to having the pain of them not being here and start to find little glimmers of light amongst the awful, awful heartache. I know I will always carry the sadness, heartache and pain of being without Mum but for myself and my parents I need to try and live a life without them, I don't think I will ever be as happy as before Mum passed but I can try to be happy sometimes and make the best of what life I do have, because I see it as this - I have two choices - live and try and make it as ok as possible or give up. I don't want to give up. I think of my brave Mum and she never gave up, she wanted to live as much for me as herself.

    I truly feel for the pain you are going through, you are not alone. You have been through an awful experience this year, total life cganging experiences, it will shape you differently. You are stronger than what you think, you have coped with losing Mum and seeing your Dad become ill and losing him and you are still here, reaching out to others, your parents would be proud. 

    Anytime you wish to talk, I'm here as are many others, all going through or having experienced similar pain. We understand and I think that helps immensely.

    Please take good care of you now, you need to focus on your own self and if necessary do whatever you feel like to get through the days.

    Jane x

  • Offline in reply to ChrissyJ

    So sorry to hear you are going through this amount of grief in such a short amount of time. My dad passed away when I was 4 and my mum is dying from liver failure at the moment. Back in November she was fine but the deterioration is so fast.
     

    I'm 31 and an only child, so I'm trying to face the reality of living the rest of my life without parents. None of my friends have lost a parent let alone two and I also feel as though (when the time comes soon) that I will not be able to carry on living. That's my biggest fear right now, I feel totally alone. Sending you love x

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