What a lovely response it helped me after just losing my lovely dad and feeling so lost

I also have lost my Dad Christmas 2020. He was such a powerful person in my life, that there are many days where I simply can not believe I will never talk to him again. Sometimes it feels that life is too long, if I am every to meet him again. My Mum has also passed and my brother too. My Father was my complete guide in life and my best friend. He had a positive answer to all our problems and our loss of both my Mum and brother were massive. He always managed to encourage me focus on what was good in life. I have found this year increadiably hard, as the person that was alway their for me, with his advice and guidance is not longer here. I have two wonderful children and I need to keep focused because of them. But life, has indeed become harder. I know the advice that he gave me for my Mum and brother, would be something that he would want me to have for his loss.

When we have people that are so important to us that it hurts so deeply when we loose them, we must remember that to have that pain, is because that person was so very special to us. That some people are never lucky enought to find that love in ther life and for that reason we must be look to all the times that we did have and not the times that we don't now have. I am lucky to have had a beautiful Mum, amazing in everyway. A fantasic, tallented and completely loved brother and the most amazing Dad, whom I am forever grateful and proud to have had as my Dad. Love you Dad. x You were my shinning star. A true light in my life and all the things that you taught me will live on in my thoughts. You were a special person and I loved you so much. Night Dad, you can rest with Mum and your amazing Son. I will keep close, that to have had you as my Father was a true blessing. 

I feel the same and I'm lot older than you plus I've no friends or family so I feel really bad most times

Hi. I am so sorry for what you are going through and wondered if a different perspective would help. I too adored my dad and would have done anything for him. I was literally in love with him. Unfortunately he was selfish and emotionally abused me and when I split with my abusive husband he sided with him. The absolute devastation of having a father still alive but not interested in me is soul destroying. I basically lost my dad, Stepmum and siblings I adored in one fell swoop. The grief is never ending precisely because he hasn't died so there will never be closure,

I had a very emotionally abusive childhood from both my parents and 2 years ago I basically lost the other half of my family due to my mother's terrible behaviour- shocking secrets she had kept and bullying of my stepdad and I that ended with us feeling suicidal but she didn't care. My brother will not have a relationship with me unless I resume contact with my mother which means daily phone calls where I am further blamed, shamed and guilted. Neither am I allowed to see my nephew and niece. I suffer severe mental health issues which they also shame me for. In the last year I have lost my supportive father in law and my best friend is dying of cancer.

My point is, is that you have been extremely blessed to have the father you had but I do believe from what I have learned from my own experience that when we make loved ones the centre of our world we can become overly dependent on them and fail to develop our sense of self as an autonomous being that can survive in the world without them. We all need to fly the nest at some point and develop the self confidence to lead our own lives. It may help to realise that this is simply a new stage in your life journey. A very painful one but the pain will get easier and you will have endless positive memories to look back on which truly is a blessing that many of us don't have. Your dad gave you all the love in the world so that at some point you could spread your wings and fly xx

Thank you very much for sharing your perspective. First of all, I wish things were better for you with regard to your own family situation. It sounds as if you have been through the wars yourself.

I also completely agree with you that I was blessed to have the father I had. And I completely agree with your point that "when we make loved ones the centre of our world we can become overly dependent on them." This is absolutely true of me. I WAS and still am (emotionally/psychologically/spiritually) dependent on my father. He was the light of my life. Perhaps I will be able to benefit from your wisdom at some point and spread my wings and fly. It's just that I really only want to fly back to my father. We'll see how it works out.

Thanks again. I wish you all the best with your own challenges. It sounds as if you've got the internal resources to manage them and then some.

Bless you for your kind reply. I was worried I might have been tactless as even I can't truly imagine the grief of losing a wonderful father. One thing that's strange is as the years go by - I feel I have developed a stronger relationship with my grandad who died over 20 years ago. I can't explain it but it's like the relationship is still growing and sometimes I like to imagine they are still with us but just in a different room. I'm still emotionally dependent on my lost family and have an irrational fear I can't survive without them. There is nothing wrong with wanting to fly back to your dad. It doesn't matter if you grow one feather at a time of your new wings xx

What you describe with your grandad is what I want with my dad. I can't bear the thought of going through life without him. I want(ed) him to be with my always - if/when I get married, if/when I have children, etc, etc. I want(ed) him to be on my journey, and I want(ed) to be on his, forever.

Of course I know - logically - that that isn't possible. If you're lucky, you might get your parents for a huge chunk of your life. I know people who had their parents (or at least one of them) until they were 60 or even 70 years of age. I wish I had had my dad until 60 or 70. The fact that I will now have most of my life without the central figure is devastating to me.

People will say to me: "But you are the central figure in your life" and so on. Whilst that's true in one sense I fear those people don't fully understand what it is to love somebody (and be loved by somebody) so intensely that you and that person are two sides of the same coin. Losing that person is beyond excruciating. Two days before my father died - when I realised he was going to die - I screamed and cried in a way that I didn't think was possible for an adult. My soul was being torn out.

I think it goes back to your point that that sort of love/relationship may actually not be ideal. I'm aware that (some) Buddhists would regard that sort of attachment as excessive. 

Anyway, thanks again for your perspective. I don't think you were/are being tactless at all. I think you've offered a very useful perspective. It's a cliche, but everybody goes through his/her own suffering and it can be helpful for me to imagine what it would have been like NOT to have had the father I had. In some ways I would have been spared the unspeakable pain and loss. But it's also true that I would never had the love he gave me either.

It's natural to be completely traumatised but I promise it will get easier. Do you still have your mum? x

I lost my dad three years ago  to cancer  so I  know  what you are  going  through  he always  giving me  advice on something that I  could not  work  out  of how to  do things  but  one thing I can  say is  he leaned me  how  to  paint  and  how  to  plump  washers in but  he  was a hero  in everyone's  eye 

I do, but our relationship is not a good one.