Dealing with Death

[Rxt156]

Not a great subject I know but I’m hoping that this thread will give people the opportunity to express emotions that may be difficult to say aloud but easier to type.

I lost my grandad 7 years ago and I’ve never quite been able to come to terms with it. I find it so awful that he is still gone and will never be back. It was a very sudden death, no illness at all. I just went round one day and he did answer the door. I used a key and he has collapsed upstairs . A short stay in hospital and be passed away. The worst bit was never being able to say goodbye and being so close to someone (he was a total legend) and all of a sudden they are gone. Absolutely awful.

 

[Bingewatcher92]

On Monday it’s 2 years since I woke up to my other half having taken his own life in the night. I hoped that time would make it easier to cope with but I think this years been the hardest lead up. I’m really struggling. I was diagnosed with PTSD from it all a couple of months ago and I’m on the waiting list for therapy.
I just want my man back

 

[Platypusfattypus]

I've pretty much lost most of my family. My parents died when I was younger, both from cancer. Watching them die messed me up pretty badly for a while. Then I've lost grandparents etc. I've never got over the death of my parents, I don't think I ever will. You always expect to lose your parents but not when you are young. My mum was 36 when she died, and my dad was 42, so I'm almost older then them both.

 

[Bwacac]

My partner who’s 30 lost his dad 11 months ago. we sat with his dad for 72 hours at the hospital up until about 4 hours before he passed. We had the call to say he’d gone at 3am and we’re back at the hospital 40 mins later to sit with him in peace. It was the worst 72 hours I’ve ever experienced and it’s made me so afraid of losing my parents. I was a child and a teenager when I lost all 4 of my grandparents. Seeing my partner broken after realising his dad was never coming home hurt so much. My partner is my rock and he’s tough and doesn’t show feelings. Watching him cry And the tears falling on his dads bed and knowing there was nothing I could do to ease his pain was so hard. Watching someone die and struggling to breath was horrific and will stay with me forever and it’s made me so scared of dying myself knowing that’s what will happen when my time comes. 11 months on my partner is doing well, he talks about his dad quite a bit and I know that when he’s missing him he doesn’t say as much but we will go for a drive and end up going passed where he used to live or his old place of work etc. One other thing after going through this is it’s made me love my partner more than I’ve ever thought possible because I saw a different side to him and going through it as a couple made us so much closer and stronger than ever. I think when you lose someone so close to you and you witness that death it definitely changes you as a person for ever. Sending lots of love to everyone whose posted on this thread xx

Something amazing to come out of this was after losing his dad my partner realised that he wanted a child and a family of his own, he was always adamant that children weren’t on the agenda for him despite being an amazing step dad to my young son. After many months of trying, I am now pregnant and our baby is due the day after his dads birthday in May 2021. I truly believe this baby is a gift from heaven and will be watched over by it’s grandad. I’m a huge believe in things like that.

 

[Gembo]

I am having a really hard time coming to terms with my parents deaths. I had a difficult and largely distant relationship with them due to them both being alcoholics. Back in mid 2016 my dad was diagnosed with cancer, in early 2017 my mum was hospitalised for months due to her alcoholism, we were then told she was terminally ill, a few months later dad was diagnosed as terminal.

I spent a lot of time looking after my mum as best I could from that point on including moving in with her for months at a time. I remained estranged from my dad due to his abusiveness. Then in 2018 he made contact saying he wanted a fresh start as he was dying. I was willing to meet him half way, I really tried but he was still drinking and kept sending me nasty messages and then acting like nothing happened. He wanted me to go and see him but honestly I was too scared so I didnt until the day before he died. I would not have picked him out in a crowd, he looked nothing like my dad. I spent the whole of his last day with him, holding his hand and talking to him until he peacefully passed away in the evening.

Just a few months later mum died. I was totally shocked as we had been told 3x previously that she was close to passing only for her to improve so for most of that last week I didnt actually think she would die. Much to my regret I even left her one morning to go to the gym, she was sat up laughing and talking and I didn’t think I needed to worry. A few days later she passed and it wasn’t peaceful. She was in pain, distressed and could hardly talk.

After she passed I felt very little. I thought maybe I was coping really well. I’ve since come to realise that it was all too much and I had just gone numb to cope. Since lockdown my grief has hit me like a tidal wave, I have nightmares about their deaths, I feel utter disbelief, I get flashbacks at random times. I feel like I’m at a real low point in my life, since they died I feel so old, I am so unhappy with my life and trying to figure out how to change it. I’m still buried in grief. I feel it’s been a pivotal moment in my life and I’m still trying to make sense of it all. Their deaths haunt me and I just still can not believe they are both gone or that they passed so close together. I am having therapy and have been told I have complex grief, I suffered 2 other bereavements, one a few months before my dad and one a few weeks after that also hit me hard, one I’ve coped well with as it was expected, the other not so much, but it’s mum and dads deaths that I just can’t deal with. It was hard to believe so much happened in such a short time. Now I think about death a lot and it’s huge and it scares me.

 

[lozzapaloozza]

I don’t know why I’m saying this here but I just really miss my mum Just wanted anyone that might be feeling the same way to see this and know they aren’t alone Xxx

 

[lexle]

I lost my brother when I was 14, he was 23. It was unexpected, he was killed by a car. I closed myself off for a good few months, stayed in my room while family gathered downstairs most nights all together. One thing that has shocked me is that I very rarely cry over him. I’ve felt so abnormal about that. You always imagine you’ll be in tears all the time but I just wasn’t. It’s been 12 years now. The pain I feel is indescribable but I don’t ever show it to anyone or even myself really. I’m a very private person and I don’t like to show emotion to even family. Time has helped massively and instead of thinking of his death and what happened, I now only ever think of the things we did together, those precious memories I have forever. I have to hope that I will see him again one day

 

[Emperortooco]

I lost my dad a long time ago now 29 years it was totally unexpected he just had a massive heart attack in front of me and my mum and he was gone, will never forget how brutal it was but quick. I,ve always been exceptionally close to my mum, I,m married , happily I might add but I loved my mum so much. I was adopted as a child and they gave me the best life that they could and I’ll never forget that. Anyway fast forward to 2013 and my mum had been diagnosed with breast cancer for almost 5 years. We knew after 6 months that it was secondary so we knew that time was limited but we had a few good years and gradually she started to fail probably in the March onwards. I knew that we were getting close to the end and like some people on here emotionally I found it difficult to cope. In the August she was rushed into hospital as she couldn’t get out of bed one morning and after tests and a couple of weeks stay they let her go home to die. I took the time off work and left Hubble and my dogs to their own devices and moved back to my childhood home to look after her and be with her until the very end. Must admit there were some very tough times as cancer is a bastard and she was in so much pain and she begged me to help her end things twice and those conversations were hard as she was in so much pain she said a couple of times “if you loved me enough you would help me” but deep down I think she was just desperate at that time as other days we would talk for hours ! So it went on for almost 8 weeks and I had help from Macmillan and eventually a few nights sleep as Marie Curie sent a wonderful nurse over to sit with my mum, and then on Oct 2nd just after midnight I held her hand as she slipped peacefully away and truth be known part of me died with her. I,ve never been the same person that I was when she was here and don,t think I ever will be again. I used to imagine how empty my life would be without her and sadly now that it’s happened it’s become a reality.

 

[GabbyBeGone]

I lost my sister to suicide 3 weeks ago, she was 31. It seems more of a tragic mistake rather than anything planned, she was high on cannabis when she did it and we think she had a psychotic episode. I don’t have the energy to do anything much today, I love and miss her so much But I also resent the hell out of her right now. We should’ve grown old together and had so many more amazing experiences together. I feel like there’s such a massive part of me missing, and I will never be truly happy again

 

[Dwightschrute]

Not sure what to say other than I’m sending love to you all. I lost my mum 8 months ago aged just 53 to cancer. I’m still in denial and I just miss her so much.

 

[Fenella]

Oh I’m sorry that you are feeling sad at the moment.

I randomly had a cry about my grandad today and he’s been gone years now, just talking to my son about a toy he used to have that grandad bought him and it all just felt right as though it was recent again, grief is a weird thing

 

[PoleStar]

I'm glad to have found this thread as I still grieve for my parents. My dad died in 2015 and my mum died 15 months later in 2016. I honestly thought that by now I would have stopped grieving and be able to just concentrate on the happy memories, but it hasn't been like that. My grief is like a raw patch inside me that just won't heal. I have been thinking of seeing a therapist as I thought I was abnormal feeling like this, but from reading this thread I can see it is a widespread phenomenon. I'm not scared of dying myself but scared of losing loved ones as I age.

 

[HoGi]

My dad died in October last year and I think this twitter thread sums up grief perfectly.

The main thing to realise is that there is no right or wrong way to grieve. I think about my dad all the time. Some times I can talk about him without it hurting, other times I will see/hear something or think about something and burst into tears.

My mum and sister have handled things very differently to me, but we are very different people. Doesn't mean of us care any less. We just express ourselves differently

 

[Lalala12]

In a few weeks time it will be one year since my father’s death. He was only 61 and I’m finding the grieving process very ‘weird’. Considering it has been nearly 12 months my head just cannot process the fact that he has gone.

He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s 10 years ago and it slowly progressed until he also developed Lewy Body Dementia. The last few years of his life was spent living in a ward at a specialist hospital unit and then eventually he went into a home. The way my mother was treated by both the hospital and care home was awful (but that’s another story) and he suffered so much.

When he was admitted to hospital from the care home and we were told to prepare for the worst, due to covid we couldn’t visit him. It was only when we were told he was going to pass that day were we allowed to see him. My mother had to basically beg for me to be allowed to see him too which still makes me angry. When we said goodbye to him he was basically unaware of us being there and while we talked to him, I hate the fact that he potentially spent the previous week awake wondering where we were and why we didn’t visit him. He wasn’t even given a private room. We basically just had to close the curtain while we spoke to him surrounded by some very ill other people.

Eventually we got a phone call that night to say he had passed. It fills me with so much anger to think that he died alone, without someone to hold his hand. I think this just hasn’t helped my grieving process because I am still so angry about it.

I keep getting reminders that it’s Father’s Day soon and I hate it. I am only 28 and the fact that I will never see my dad again and his grandkids will never meet him is agony. I just hope this gets better

 

[cedarpeach]

It’s so hard to grasp. My dad died unexpectedly 5 years ago. He was only 61. I live in a different country and so wasn’t there when he died. He lived alone, and he was alone when he died. I find that really hard.

grief is nothing like I expected it to be and I feel sad that I never got to have a proper relationship with my dad when I was a “true” adult. Even though I was in my 20s when he died I hadn’t really grown up properly and didn’t yet see him through clear eyes. We had a difficult relationship but we really loved each other. Only in hindsight do I realise that he was the one person in my life when I was growing up that really understood me for who I was and encouraged all my little nerdy, geeky interests. He would happily listen to me yap on for hours about stuff that interested me. He was a really kind, placid, gentle man who sadly struggled in life. I feel gutted for the hard, short run he had in life.

 

[Dwightschrute]

A great quote I love that helps me through grief is -

“Look at the stars – how they shine and glow, but some of those stars died a long time ago.
Still they shine in the evening skies. Love, like starlight, never dies”
No Matter What by Debi Gliori

 

[littlepup]

With regard to grief coming in waves, below is a post from user Gsnow on reddit a long. Time ago which went semi vital. It might be interesting to some.

 

[openbook1]

My grandad died a few years back 8 weeks after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It was the first death I ever experienced, horrific.
Since then, and especially as I have got older, I really fear death, not so much for me but for others. I am terrified of losing the people I love

 

[Rockin' Robin]

Unfortunately I have had quite a few deaths in my family. Lets just say I am the only one left. I won't delve too deeply into it, because it is far too painful. However, I would like to share a poem that I wrote, sometime after my Brother died in 1994.

To those who grieve

Not a Father's daughter,
but a tree standing alone.
Motionless in a clear breeze.
Never again to feel the rays of the sun
Dancing upon my leaves.

Not a Brother's Sister.
Never again to gaze at the world
with innocent eyes.
The only freedom flows through my tears.

Heal me briefly with empty words.
But allow my memories dignity.
And my dreams to remain true.

Copyright Rockin' Robin 1995.

 

[Lolaslife]

I lost my dad to Covid on the 5th of February this year. I am beyond devastated. It's only hitting me now that he is never coming back. I can't believe il never see him again. He fought for 5 weeks in the hospital but unfortunately covid won. He had no underlying conditions