What was it like when your mother/father died?

@thanatos: I am very sorry and might tentatively suggest you go to see him to perhaps mend bridges, finish up unfinished business and if nothing else, say “good-bye.”

You can read up on grief, but you cannot predict your own emotions. Typically, the death of a parent is a violent shock, no matter what the circumstances.

@gailcalled Yes, thanks, I should do that.

I didn’t get to meet my father until I was in my teens and I had him for about 15yrs before he died, seeing him every few years. It was hard, so much time I wanted to cover with him, so many experiences and lessons he wanted to share but between two adults, each with adult responsibilities and living states away, we missed a lot of knowing each other. His death made me extra appreciative for what I do have and has focused me to try and make every good thing count for as much as I can affect it.

My mother was in another state, and it was hard to accept it. I couldn’t make it out to where she was, and I couldn’t say goodbye. She passed on the one night, that I didn’t call her. I was hurt, and fell into a deep depression. It will be hard, and it will feel like your in a different reality. I agree with @gailcalled. I unfortunately, didn’t even have a chance to say good bye, and it left me with an emptiness that I am still trying to fill.

First off, my heart goes out to you.

A few years before my Mom passed, we didn’t see eye to eye. In fact, we didn’t talk for a good two years (she wasn’t accepting of my lifestyle/sexual preference). Anyhow, the last six months, before we found out that she was sick with cancer, we mended fences. You see, before I came out, we were best friends. Then, after I dropped the bombshell (“I’m gay!”), I lost all of that with her.

I am so glad that we “made up”; that I had my good friend back. And, most importantly that I got to tell her that I loved her. I spent the last 3 months of her life by her side taking care of her. I got say “goodbye”.

It was they hardest thing that I’d ever been through.

I really do think that you should do the same. The him you love him and say “goodbye”.

I’m very sorry you have such heartache ahead.

I was with my Father when he died, and even tho I was able to have closure with him, it was very difficult for me for a long time afterward. My Father represented strength to me. he always took care of all of us, and sloved problems when it looked like no one could. he was the comic at family reunions, and always knew how to make peo[ple smile, even at times when they thought they couldn’t.

I agree with @gailcalled also. Try to see your Father as much as you can, while you still can. It will mean alot to both of you to be able to say the unsaid things, and be able to say goodbye. Your grief will be alittle easier to bear if you have a sense of closure to look back on. I hope you will make good use of the time you have left.

I was 1000 miles or more away when my Mother died, but the doctors knew she might pass soon, so my brother called and put her on the phone so I could say goodbye to her as well. After she died, I felt kind of like an orphan, even tho I was well into adulthood at the time. It was difficult, but not as hard as losing my father. he was my rock, and 15 years later I still miss him as if he was here only yesterday.

My mother may be in the process of dying. It is hard to say because of the dementia. However, it has been going on for a number of years, and I have almost lost my husband several times as well. From that I have learned that the best way to cope is to make sure to mend any fences so you can say a loving goodbye, and to pre-plan in your head whatever you need to do when it happens.

Thus, the second and third times my husband was expected to die I researched our finances to be certain we could keep the house and the kids could go to college, and I spoke with a chaplain on base about how to get him the funeral and burial he wanted. I am in the process of doing the same with my mother, plus I am planning how to help my father get through the event. They have been married for 59 years.

I also helped my parents through the loss of their parents in large part by sorting through the belongings and files and getting things where they needed to go. Part of it was just doing the work, and part of it was listening to their memories and family stories.

I suggest you figure out how you need to say goodbye, and possibly do something for him that he needs so you can have a sense of having done your best by him.

Definitely make every effort to connect w/him, by phone at least if you can’t visit in person. It’s true, as others have said, that you can’t know how you will react; but from my own experience of losing various family members & friends, you should expect things to feel more or less surreal for awhile.

ise ellinas???

@dimitris – Δεν βρέθηκαν λέξεις. Δεν βρέθηκαν λέξεις. επαγρυπνώ @Jack79. Δεν βρέθηκαν λέξεις. Δεν βρέθηκαν λέξεις.

No, we are not Greek. Not too many Greeks here, but watch for @Jack79. He speaks some Greek. I don’t know if anyone here speaks Turkish, though.

@ Darwin: Υπάρχει μια ηχώ εδώ?

No, just practicing my skills for simultaneous translation in case I get a job working at the UN.

I had been living some 7,000 miles away from my family, when my mother was diagnosed with cancer. While I was able to visit and, in effect, say goodbye – though I didn’t fully realize it at the time – I wasn’t present during most of her illness… and she died while I was en route to visit her for what I thought was going to be the last time. I had always feared losing one of my parents before I could get to them to say goodbye; being told, at the airport, that my mother was already gone, was indeed terrible – for both me, and the sister who had to tell me.

And yet, like other things I have feared, I lived through it (as one tends to). In my experience, grief does not so much “go away” as become integrated into one’s life. Grief changes over time in tone and intensity; you learn to live with your loss, and to let the person you’ve loved and lost, live within you.

I second those who’ve written here that one cannot anticipate what or how one will feel when a parent (or any loved one) dies. [Although the most resonant description of grief I read at the time was that penned by C.S. Lewis in “A Grief Observed”.] I also second those who suggest seeing, or speaking to your father, if you can – now. Alas, my father, too, is elderly and ill, and in a liminal state from which he may recover – or may not. I am privileged in being able to be with him and help him through this time. How long will it last? How difficult will it become? I have no idea… and though being with him has thrown my own life into a curious and unpleasant limbo, I cannot imagine choosing not to be with him just now.

I don’t believe it’s possible to say everything, to be present totally, to do everything you’d like to before a loved one dies. We are imperfect beings, and life is imperfect. There will always be things left unsaid, if not from the past, then from the future you won’t be able to share. All we have is now. Live in it – take what it offers – and be in peace.

May you, and your father, find strength in this difficult time.