Did you dread the loss of your parents/grandparents?

Post Reply New Topic

I know everyone's shocked and saddened by a family member's death, even aspies. Just wondering, does the pain lessen the older they get? I somehow feel I have a life expectancy for everyone based on their general health and medical history. Once people get past that expected life span everyday is a bonus and I shouldn't feel too bad about them dying. Well that's what I thought. I now have two people in the family who have gone over that expectations, instead of being happy for them I now feel a sense of doom. "Oh no it's bound to happen now, how am I gonna cope?" Plus I have a even more stupid feeling that I must now live up to their longevity, as I'm generally as healthy as they are, the bar has been set even higher now.

I wonder how to relax and just enjoy their presence. It's stupid for me to worry about them or have anxiety about how long I'll live. I'm no god and I can't know when anyone would die.

Yes, the pain is less the older they are when they die. Another thing that makes a huge difference is if you have children by then. Also though a lot less: a spouse, close friends. I don't have any of these, so the passing of my parents has been very hard on me.

As to my grandparents, they were very aloof people towards children and hardly ever talked to me, so I didn't feel anything when they passed.

I've lost a lot of loved ones, and my grief has varied a lot. The most intense was when either the death was a shock or when they were someone I felt especially close to. I've also felt intense grief for pets - probably because they were with me every day, so I noticed their absence acutely. Plus I've always felt close to my pets, considered them family members.

I have at times dreaded someone's death, human or not, but I try to just enjoy being with loved ones now and let tomorrow work itself out. I wouldn't want to let worry ruin my enjoyment of the special and precious times we have together. There's not usually anything to be done, especially for the elderly. Death is inevitable. Of course we delay it if we reasonably can, but it has to be faced sooner or later, and I prefer to face it when it actually happens, not too far ahead of time.

Probably the hardest as far as dreading death was when my mom had cancer and I was helping care for her in home hospice. My grief began in advance of her death, and that was difficult to hold in check for her sake.

I lost both my parents; my father died in 2008, and my mother died in 2009. Sometimes I will just start crying unexpectedly if something reminds me of one of them. Like I was watching a movie once, and the actor was walking down a country road. From behind he looked like my father; sort of tall and slightly stooped, wearing a hat like the one he always liked to wear. I cried really hard. Since losing my parents and two of my aunts, I have gotten very fearful of losing near and dear ones. I wish I could just chill out but am beset with morbid thoughts of death and dying all the time.

My grandfather died in 2007 and to this day I don't feel sad about it or in shock. I never felt sad about it. I felt in shock when it happened because I wasn't expecting it to happen that day. I knew he was going to die and I didn't know when it was going to happen. He was in poor shape.

I did not dread the loss of my (adopted) parents. As a matter of fact, I looked forward to it and often fantasized about how I could assist the reaper's arrival, in as painful a way as possible.

Well, I received the news that my father had died when I responded to a "anyone knowing the whereabouts of" add in the local paper. Disappointingly, I also found that my mother had died 2 years earlier. Damn, couldn't help her out either. Had the lawyer mail me the papers to sign to reject any and all inheritance (and ties) from them.

Life can be good. Not always perfect, but good.

For me the pain didn't lessen as they aged. But it did lessen as I distanced myself from my family and as they... well, faded.

I'm the eldest of my generation on both sides, considerably so on one side. The grandparents my cousins remember were invalids. The grandparents I remember were active people, socially, in their church, gardening, swimming, etc. After their strokes, they were essentially gone to me anyway. They just weren't the people I remembered nor were they people to whom I could relate at that point. So I did a fair amount of pregrieving and didn't fly back for the first funerals. I did visit my grandfather on his deathbed, somewhat by accident as it correlated with a high school reunion and my current agreement with myself about family participation is that I'll visit my mother and village of origin once every 5 years for the reunions. So I did make his funeral, but from my perspective, both of those grandparents were "gone" long before they died.

On the other side, my grandfather died at a time when I wasn't really in touch with the family. I didn't even know about it for some time. My grandmother died only a couple of years ago and I did celebrate her 90-somethingth birthday after being estranged for at least 25 years. She wasn't entirely there either, but there was some reactivity and some degree of lucidity before she died.

Frankly, I'm weird about death, I guess. I haven't yet had death strike so close to home that it was difficult for me. I don't know whether I haven't yet been affected in that way or whether I have, and I've just processed it so well that it wasn't a significant issue. When my parents die, I expect that will be harder, not because they'll be gone, but because it'll mean that I'm forced to confront my own mortality even more closely.

My dad has a serious medical condition and I worry all the time that he will die. If he runs to the store and takes a little too long, I worry tremendously. If he is doing something physical, I worry a lot, too. My mom seems pretty healthy, so I don't worry about her in the same way.

What I worry most about is that, for all the stress between them and me, they are still my best two friends. I worry what I will do when they die and what will become of me. Who will take care of me? Who will love me? Who will ask me how I am doing today? The answer is that nobody will. I'm in my mid-thirties and feel really pathetic about this. I can't make friends and have no hope of having a spouse. I have such deep trust issues that it just doesn't seem like an actual possibility to develop a relationship with another person to the point where they would actually care about me in the same way that my parents do.

Am I alone, or do others have these same worries, too?

I dread my mother dying, I just don't know how I would manage without her. I speak to her every day and I can't imagine her not being there. She is 63 and not in great health so I know I will be lucky to have another 10 years with her. I hope by the time she passes away that I will have my own kids, otherwise I'm not sure how I could go on.

You know my dad is the same. He has never been healthy and nearly died a few times since I was quite little. He's also quite a bit older than me. Well he's 75 now and still pretty smart. Lots of his friends and co-workers who were stronger and healthier than him have died by now. You never know, your mom might keep going for a long time yet. And it's never too late to improve your lifestyle and health.

I don't so much dread loss as my parents becoming seriously ill and needing someone to care for them. They are both very healthy at the moment but live a long way from me and are very reliant on each other, I am an only child and my mother in particular has no relatives so I feel it will be up to me to help.

My parents are the only family I have anything to do with and I consider them friends so I will miss them, I also accept because of their age they will not be around for ever. they are approaching the ages at which my grandparents died.

One of my grandfathers died when I was 10, the other grandparents were all dead by the time I was 17. Somewhat oddly I miss the grandfather who died when I was 10 most, he was interesting, we would go for long walks and talk about all kinds of stuff. Somewhat weirdly I was not that upset when he died or remember missing him much at the time, but shortly after kind of adopted an old man who lived up the road from me who I used to visit fairly frequently (his grandchildren lived miles away from him and he never saw them - I guess he was my surrogate grandparent and I his surrogate grandchild - he also died by the time I was 17 - again I was not very distressed as he was a very elderly man by that stage and had been ill for a while).

Thank you, you are quite right. My maternal Grandmother had a terrible life, she was widowed and brought up four kids on her own. She also had health problems and in the latter years of her life was addicted to tranquillizers (prescribed by the doctor). She lived until she was 90! I wish your Dad a long life.

This probably sounds cold but no I don't. I don't want them to die but I don't think I will be affected that much if they do. A few years back my mother's partner died. They had been together for more than 20 years. In many ways he was more of a father to me than my real father was. As far as I can tell I felt virtually nothing.

My grandmother died when I was 12. My grandfather died when I was 18. In both cases I felt extreme grief and sense of loss. Both of them died in their 60's. They lived upstairs from me. My grandfather was my best friend, my hero and role model. My grandmother protected me from an abusive father. Upstairs with my grandparents was a refuge and an escape.

I watched my father die and felt nothing. When my mother died I felt some sadness.

My Dad died, when he was 58. That surprised me and saddened me greatly. My grandparents did not surprise me or make me sad. One of my daughters died 8 hours after birth. This did not sadden me, because there was nothing I could have done; she had trisomy 13.

We will all die. Not all of us will fully live.

My grandfather isn't likely to last the rest of the year. I'm not dealing well.

Seeing him as old and frail as he is now, I can't stand it. He's always been the toughest man I ever knew.

I feel guilty now for putting off having kids. When I do, they're never gonna know him. I feel like I've cheated them out of something priceless. And I know how much he would've loved to know them.

I'm angry. I can't accept it. It's gonna happen whether I do or not. But I can't.