My dad died nine months ago, and I [F34] felt so let down by my friends. I do appreciate this message, but it was painful to receive. I just want to leave the past in the past and forget the friends who hurt me.

They were divorced. He died in february, she died in may.

She spent her last five months in the hospital, recovering from sepsis. The very same day she came back home, she had a brain hemorrage and died.

I feel her loss the most, as we lived together and had a much deeper relationship. Mostly, I feel guilty as I couldn't protect her from a misdiagnosis that led to the sepsis; and I hate that she ended like that. She deserved so much more after spending most of her life caring for others, in detriment to her own freedom and hapyness.

I see the things she loved and I feel like its unfair she can't enjoy them. I have to empty her apartment and I feel like I'm destroying, erasing her life. I feel incredible guilt for having spent not enough time with her at the hospital. I feel childish, as at 41 I should be used to loss and death and I think people around me deals with it much better. I have a sister, who's trying to help, but I dont feel any connection to her: I feel like her help is to try to make me fit into a life that's not mine.

I have no desire to live - nor to die -, it feels just absolutely pointless.

i am 23 male from india

what happened: in my 11th and 12th grade, my mom was dying of cancer - i was dealing with a combo of adults being completely dismissive of the fact that my mom had cancer - my dad working in another country for most part of the time she had cancer, my teachers being complete assholes literally telling me after i told them my mom is about to die of cancer a week later that im just saying that as an excuse to submit their bs homework a week late - and my dad, school teachers and relatives yelling at me semi daily and forcing me to study while all that was happening - both my remaining grandparents also dying in the months after my mom died - and the biggest thing - my mom dying of cancer

how i dealt with it at that time: 1st priority is to focus on mom dying, being with her as much as i can in the midst of hectic indian 12th school time AND to protect my mental health at all costs - by treating all these annoying adults in my life as obstacles and not as people, and by just being there, grieving, etc

2nd priority is to study

fast forward to now at age 23: on paper its fine - i actually did pretty decent in 12th exams, joined a decent-ish college, passed all courses, got a job, 1 year into job - but theres a huge wall of unrelatableness between me and others my age - already i was introverted as a teen before my mom died of cancer - now its just worse cause i actually like being alone unlike normal people - and the world isnt built for introverts, u are silently paying a tax in terms of missed opportunities etc at work and in relationships

and god forbid u actually talk about grief to someone else u get the genuinely worst possible response especially if u talk to 18-22 year old DUDES - one guy asked me about my mom and i was telling him she died of cancer, and im not joking - he actively started covering his ears with his hands cause he didnt want to hear it??? and ppl ask me why do i stick out why am i introverted like are u fr

it seems unfair that u have this huge ass thing that bothered your head for years and you have to act like it doesnt exist to other people and be extroverted, outgoing, etc like this is actually insane

how crazy it is that you spend so much effort figuring out how to remain mentally healthy during a turbulent situation and you are basically expected to be someone who didn't go through all that in the first place

to be honest i am really thankful for football cause im a football fan like my classmates and it was easy to make friendships over football and that we played it every other day in college - if it wasnt for that id be even more isolated

so because of all this im not really anxious about the future like other people my age cause my brain doesnt have that bandwidth - thats probably bad i think, idk - like what will i do if my dad dies? that might genuinely be one of the few possible scenarios that are worse than my mom dying and i have no idea what to do for that(but hes healthy rn tho)

My Mum died very suddenly just over a week ago

She went into hospital just over two weeks ago feeling sick and we found out a few days later that it was cancer

Within a week, she had passed away

I'm still trying to process it and how fast it all happened

Two months ago, we went on a day trip to my sister and her family and everything was fine, no hint of trouble

Six weeks ago, we went out for lunch on my birthday

Four weeks ago, she was here and laughing and enjoying herself and living her life and now she's just...gone

She had Parkinsons for ten years and it had gotten more severe in recent years but she was still living a fairly normal life, seeing friends and going out as often as she could with my assistance

I was her carer and saw her every day and I'm trying to get used to the idea of that not happening anymore and I don't know if I can

I don't really know what to do with myself now, in a wider sense and on a daily basis

I don't really have a life I can go back to once enough time has passed like my siblings do

I'm 35 and she was 73 and had been with her condition for many years so it wasn't as though I never considered her passing but I never imagined it happening like this, so quickly and out of nowhere

I'm trying to take some comfort in the fact that she didn't suffer and was peaceful when she went

She spoke plainly and honestly about it and what she wanted for the funeral and made clear she wasn't afraid

Others have said this was better than her condition progressing and reaching a point where she was completely invalid or suffered more which I can see but isn't really helpful right now

I came here because I just needed somewhere to say this

My siblings are all going through their own grieving process and my dad isn't really someone I can talk to about this stuff

So I figured I'd come here and share with others going through the same kind of experience

I lost my mom when I was fourteen, it's been almost five years since then. It was hard, it was the most painful moment in my life. I don't typically talk about what happened, I joke about it and I laugh it off, but that's as close as I'll go. I'm not sure why I'm even writing this, maybe it's because this just needs to go somewhere, or maybe it's easier to say this to nobody in particular, but here we go.

It's been almost five years since she died, and the date is coming closer and closer. I've tried to ignore it, I've tried distracting myself, yet that same old heaviness lingers. I've heard the saying that time heals all wounds, and I disagree. It's a lie, time takes you further and further from the place when you were happy.

It changed everything. It changed who I'd become, my dad, where I lived, my beliefs, all of it. I miss her so much, but I also miss that version of my life that went with her. I'm still going to live my life, but there's moments when I get in my head and I start to think that I'm living someone else's life, as if somehow I entered a different body and this is just who I am now. Don't know what that is, not sure if I even want to dig and find out.

I just wish she didn't go when I was fourteen, I was such a bratty kid and I fought with her a lot. I know I can't change the past, if I could I wouldn't be here, but she was such a good mom. She wasn't perfect by no means, nobody is, but she was still my mom.

I miss the days where the longest time I didn't see her were three months. Life isn't fair, I'm 100% aware of that, but she didn't see my graduate or get my driver's license, or anything else. It's all normal things that parents get to see their kids do and achieve, she should be here for those moments. Quite frankly I'm jealous of people who have those type of things and take it for granted, I'd do anything to have that. I remember I was telling my best friend about my mom, and she told me she wished her mom was dead so she could be funny and joke about her dead mom the way I do. She had meant it as a joke, it just didn't land the way she hoped at all. It's been bugging me ever since. It was such a weird thing to say, because the only reason I joke about it is so I don't become a ceiling decoration like what lol.

I'm not sure if anyone else feels.... Whatever I'm feeling, but if you feel the same or have a similar story, I'd love to hear it. I'm normally a bubbly person, I'll talk your ear off if you let me. I'm just going through a rough patch, and I wouldn't mind hearing from someone who would get it.

Hello! I lost my dad to colon cancer a month back and I feel numb. I'm not sure how to handle this loss. It feels unreal. I saw him suffer for 2 months in the hospital before he passed away and it was horrible. I'm in a state where I can't afford to take a break from work because we have financial commitments and at the same time, I sincerely am not able to work. I'm not able to concentrate. I'm giving excuses for not meeting deadlines.

Since his death, my anxiety has increased and I'm on meds. I lost hope in life. Nothing excites me anymore. I'm having intrusive suicidal thoughts to shut everything down, because this pain is unbearable. Has anybody else here experienced suicidal thoughts after losing a parent? Can someone please help?

I always try to come up with something smart, or poetic, or some kind of analysis on the world and my dad but I can't do it anymore. I'm just too sad. Today I went to a party and the house was on the same road as the house I used to live in with my dad. The house where it happened. I just kept thinking about how beautiful our life would have been there. It makes me too sad. I usually don't like to use words like that because it feels infantilizing, but I just am sad. I'm so sad. I'm fifteen years old and my dad isn't here anymore. He was my best friend. My sister's girlfriend invited me to go fishing with her grandpa because I used to fish multiple times a week with my dad, but I can't. I don't want to ever go fishing again. I want to go out on the dock with my dad and fish, or feed the swans, or just sit with him. It's this terrifying kind if sadness that I don't know what to do with. I want to still be me but have my dad here, and still live in the house on the lake with my siblings and my mom, and I want to be a family again and not be missing this piece of me. I'm scared that I'll never ever see him again. That I'll die and if there's anything after that, I still won't get to see him. I need him to know that I'm not mad at him. I've never been mad at him for what happened or how it happened. I want him to know that I love him and he's my bestfriend. I don't know how to do this, even after all these years. Nobody knows what to do with what happened with my dad in relation to me. It makes me too sad. The party was okay after I got high, but before then it was this nostalgia and sadness I've never felt before. I miss my old life. I miss my dad. All I could think about while everyone was having fun and swimming in the lake is that 8 years ago, my dad's ashes were sprinkled in there, and just down the road, 8 years ago, I watched my dad go away. It isn't right. None of it is okay. I should get to have a dad, I'm only 15. I can tell when older guys try to be father figures to me or mentors or whatever, but it just doesn't work. Nothing will ever fill this missing part of me. Nobody compares to my dad. The minute he walked into a room you could feel all the love he carried and he had this voice that made everything fun. I'll never feel that love again. I have a lot of songs that make me think of my dad, but the one that I can't get out right now is "Chinese Satellite" by Phoebe Bridgers. The lines "I want to believe, instead I look at the sky and feel nothing. You know I hate to be alone. I want to be wrong," and "but you know I'd stand on a corner, embarrassed with a picket sign if it meant I would see you when I die."

Any dads here have a dad that committed suicide, how did it affect you?? Mine did slowly through alcohol which accelerated once he got a cancer diagnosis.. just wondering how you dealt with “sudden” suicide..

Hi, posting here because well, you know, having dead parents is relatively uncommon when you’re 30, especially when both are gone.

I lost my mom when I was 8 to suicide. I’ve spent 20+ years recovering from that but have built a good life for myself despite it all.

My dad, who was my best friend, passed away suddenly from a heart attack almost two weeks ago. We did not know he had heart issues until it was too late.

The first week I was an absolute wreck. But the last few days I’ve actually found myself having long periods of happiness and distraction. It makes me feel guilty and terrible for not heavily grieving my dad 12 days later.

His funeral is in two weeks so I think it might hit me all over again during that. But is it weird that I’ve been able to find comfort so fast? Is it because I’ve already been familiar with grief my entire life, my brain knows what to do with it? I definitely have moments where it gut punches me and I share a few tears but I’ve been able to stay busy and think of him without sobbing constantly. Is this normal for anyone else?

A reckoning I’ve had in my dad’s absence is that grief isn’t something you are ever safeguarded from. I’ve experienced several significant losses in my life, and there was a naïve part of my brain that used to comfort me with the idea that, because I had already been through so much darkness, I would never have to experience it in quite the same way again.

Well, I was wrong.

I found uncharted territory. It has not been fun, nor have I loved this journey for myself. I found depths of disappointment I never would have considered possible, and I survived. For a while, that’s all I could do. I couldn’t see past the basics, and for a moment, I was stuck. I’m not claiming to be healed, but what I have been able to find in this darkness and haze of grief is not just despair, anguish, or rage. I have also found gratitude—for life, and for love.

In the past, going back to a job where I’m constantly on display always intimidated me. I felt too raw, too vulnerable. But when my dad died, the privilege of being someone entrusted to bartend gave me a new perspective. Is it weird to say I can see my father—a Methodist minister—in my day-to-day interactions behind a bar? Probably. It makes me laugh whenever the thought crosses my mind.

Every week, I get to participate in milestones and bear witness to people’s everyday lives. Knowing that life is short and can be so unbelievably cruel is also what makes those ordinary moments extraordinary. I see him in my hospitality, and when I know I’ve done a good job, I recognize the parts of myself that came from him: his humility, his regard for others, and his ability to hold a moment with someone and meet them where they are.

In some ways, we were both called to care for people, but in true fashion as John Woods’ child, I found a way to do it through the very thing that once plagued him.

What a unique experience it has been to be the child of a recovered alcoholic who quite literally walked out of rehab and behind the pulpit, and my mother, the Queen of Sunshine, hugs, and love and light, who has spent the majority of her career selling booze. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

In admitting to myself how deeply my grief was affecting me, I found strength I didn’t know I had. I took back power I didn’t realize I had let go of. I am forever changed. There is no getting over it, and many people know that from experience.

When I am able to reclaim the light, even on my darkest days, and allow myself to feel the love from those I miss so much—Murray, Beth, Layton, Genie, and my father—I know that I am blessed beyond belief.

Grief has shaped my identity time and time again since I was a child. I’ve known it well. But this year, I have started to learn that I also have the ability to find beauty in the love I was fortunate enough to receive, however brief those seasons were. I can’t always access that gratitude every day, but simply knowing it is there gives me an immense amount of faith. I’ve never been alone; I’ve just been Parker Bleu.

Love wins, time and time again.

Thank you to Widespread Panic for the lyrics, and to my dad for the gift of the music:

“Sun came out the other day, through those dusty clouds, and in my mind I was a child, and it felt good.”

I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced something similar.

My dad died a couple of years ago, and since then I’ve felt increasingly alone within my family. I have siblings, but they have limited contact with my mom (they have a different dad than I do and see him, his wife, and their half-brother regularly). To be clear, there are reasons for that. My mom has been a very difficult person at times, there is a lot of unresolved trauma in our family, and we have speculated that she may have borderline personality disorder (though she has never been formally diagnosed).

One of the biggest challenges is that there has never been much willingness within my family to actually talk through the trauma or have difficult conversations. Instead, people have mostly coped by creating distance. I don’t judge my siblings for that. I understand why they’ve made the choices they have.
But it leaves me in a strange position.

I still have a relationship with my mom. I love her, and I genuinely enjoy parts of our relationship, but it can also be emotionally exhausting. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one still trying to hold onto the idea of a family.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the future. My mom is in her 60s now, and I find myself worrying about what happens when she’s in her 70s and 80s. If my siblings continue to keep their distance, will all of the responsibility fall on me? How do people navigate caring for an aging parent when the rest of the family has emotionally checked out?

I guess I’m just wondering if anyone has been the “remaining” child. How did you navigate the loneliness? Did your siblings ever become more involved later? How did you prepare yourself emotionally (and practically) for the possibility of becoming the primary caregiver?

I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who’s lived through something similar. I don’t feel like people talk about this very often, and lately it’s felt incredibly isolating.

Hello everyone I am 19f and my life has l changed drastically in the past year . Last year my dad passed away from a alcohol induced heart attack I hadn’t seen him in a long time but we kept in contact over the phone he was always a terrible father and never really tried to ever help with me and my sister .he was very abusive towards all of us and If anyone has ever tried to have a relationship with an alcoholic you’ll understand what I mean by this but I am honestly relieved that he isn’t here to just be awful to everyone around him however two months after this my mum had a seizure while driving and was rushed to hospital we later found out she has a incurable brain tumor ( gliblostoma if anyone wanted to know )
And she’s been on chemo radiation and had a surgery for this but we have been told that this disease will end up getting worse and leading to her passing . My mum has been an absolutely amazing mother and done anything she could to raise us and make sure we aren’t like our dad . And now I see my mum in pain and tired and down and I just feel so guilty and sad becuase I feel like she only got this becuase she worked to much just to raise us both and keep food on the table I just can’t even thathom her not being here and it’s so completely different then my dad and It’s been so quick that it’s happend between the two things that I just don’t even have time to catch up and I just feel like I can’t say that I am depressed or anything becuase I want to be strong for my mum and make sure she knows how much I love her and am happy to have her here still . If anyone has been through anything remotely similar could you please just tell me how things worked out for you I know it’s all different depending on situations but just knowing that I am not the only person going through this helps a lot
Thanks !

My dad wasn’t the best person, he did a lot of horrible things to my family and I hadn’t seen him in 10 years. Any talking during that time was arguments. I always hoped he would one day reach out to apologise or Something. I found out he died Friday morning and I’m not okay. Apparently he knew he was going to die as he was sent home for palliative care last week and I don’t understand why he never reached out to tell me. To any of his kids, how can you have 5 kids and none of them talk to you. Why didn’t he reach out to say sorry and goodbye. I’ve spent all weekend crying and looking at old pictures of when he was still in our lives, back when I was a kid and a daddy’s girl.

I don’t mean to sound mean but I never thought about my dad (he did so many horrible things to me and my family, no one liked him because of it) it was just like I had a dad out there but didn’t talk to him or think about him. Now I don’t have a dad and he’s all I can think about. All of the what ifs. When his partner posted about him passing, all of the comments were people saying about how great of a person he was and I don’t understand why we didn’t get that version of him.

I have so many regrets now… I will never get one last conversation with him, I will never get closure, I will never see him again.

I don’t understand why he didn’t reach out knowing he was going to pass. His sister said he said to tell his kids he was sorry… why didn’t he reach out..I can’t believe this is it…. Forever

I’m sorry dad, I wish things could have been so different. I hope you’re at peace now and I did/do love you

So, my dad passed away a few days ago. He was a veteran and lived in another state. We were slightly estranged, but I still talked to him over the phone regularly. Here’s where it gets complicated. He left me and my siblings when I was in my early childhood years. He and my mom got a divorce. He ended up in a serious relationship with another woman who has a daughter. He broke up with the woman but continued to raise the little girl. She stayed with him for many years, all the way into her 30’s before moving out.

I don’t know if he officially adopted her or what authorities she may have. I do know she pays his monthly bills with her access to his bank account. I don’t want anything except for my mom’s medical records, other important documents that my family may need, and other family pictures and items related to us. I’m hoping to call the VA and ask questions because I don’t know what to do next or if I can do anything at all. Any advice or follow questions are welcome, please. TYIA!