#deathofparent

[lauriewoodward]

Mom: A Eulogy

My mother passed away on December 18th and in that profound loss I was tasked to write a speech for her memorial service. I trashed several drafts before I came up with this. Aunt Linda, her husband Dav, Mom pregnant with me, Dad 79 years and nine months. 698,600 hours. 41,916,000 minutes. In this past week since Mom’s passing, I’ve been trying to come up with what to say.  How do you sum up…

[iamhomewardbound]

8.28.23

TW - death, graphic descriptions, depression

My Dad died last May.

He died at 3:10 PM on a Wednesday afternoon after a lifelong battle with alcoholism. He died before I turned thirty, before he could walk me down the aisle, before he could meet my future children.

On a late Sunday afternoon I drove home because he was in the hospital again. My mom said they had mentioned that he may have six months to live. Huh? I don't know how I drove for over 3 hours after hearing that. Over the course of the next eleven days, his prognosis went from months to weeks, and from weeks to days.

And on the eleventh day, we sat around him, exhausted beyond words after days and nights of exasperated caretaking that spiraled into infinity. I cannot physically bring myself to write what we experienced, but just know when you liver and kidneys fail simultaneously, ammonia builds up in the body and pretty much makes you go insane. So the parent you love with all your heart is writhing, bucking and tearing at their own skin as their body succumbs to the end stages. They are hallucinating and angry. They are awake all hours of the night and asleep all hours of the day. They are diapered and spoon fed. They are helpless.

As we sat around him on the 11th day, his breathing began to labor. I looked up from the newspaper I was reading and suddenly it was time. We gathered (or floated? I don't even know how I got there) around him and I took his hand in mine. It was oddly lukewarm and slightly rigid. I didn't think anything of it at the time, in fact I'm not sure I was capable of coherent thought at all. His big giant hands that held me as a child, that would rustle my hair and envelope me in massive hugs. Those giant hands. How, Dad, how?

His wrist pressed against mine, and I realized couldn't feel a pulse. His breathing paused for longer than normal. I put my two fingers up under his jawline and suddenly he let out, what I did not know at the time, the very last gasp of air from his lungs. I was so startled I laughed. Not sure why I did. Then suddenly our family nurse was there and my mom told her solemnly that he seemed to have stopped breathing. Seconds, minutes, hours, maybe even days passed by, and then she put her fingers on his neck to check his pulse, and then some words came out of her mouth that indicated he was dead but there was that ringing sound in my ears. My mom and sister erupted into animalistic sobs, but the ringing sound™ got louder, louder and louder like in the movies. All other sound is muted. There is nothing, only ringing.

Somehow I watched my Dad get put on a stretcher and loaded into a hearse. They zipped the black bag up around his face and I wanted to cry out, "STOP, you're suffocating him!!!"

But it was me that couldn't breathe. I was the one who was suffocating. I couldn't breathe, and I wouldn't be able to really breathe for the next several months. Maybe even the rest of my life.

It's been a little over a year. A year of the core part of my being collapsing into itself and rotting into the diseased seas of despair and depression. You thought you were sad? You thought you were really fucking sad?? Try losing a parent under highly traumatic circumstances and your lowest moments will feel like a goddamned vacation compared to this.

The worst feeling of all is this is year 1/X; 1 of X.

X being a lifetime.

The mortuary called us on Father's Day to let us know my Dad's ashes were ready to be picked up. You know, cause Father's Day clearly was the best day to do this (sarcasm).

Something they don't tell you about ashes is that there's bits of calcified bone in it. So, if you move it, rebottle it, or shake it, it goes klink-tink. It is also a beige, almost skin-like color, not what I would have expected, and kind of sombering.

And so this is my life now. Consumed forever by the sudden, highly traumatic death of my father. I continue my existence pretending to seem like I'm okay when I've been dealt probably the craziest fucking blow I could have never forseen coming.

I can't vocalize the absolute horror and pain I've had to see and go through. I just can't.

Hug your parents. Hug your Dad. forgive them. Go visit them.

I would give up all my earthly possessions just to be wrapped in a big bear hug from my Dad, but I will never again in my life get that privilege. Just writing those words out into a sentence is incomprehensible.

You don't even know the magnitude of knowing never again in your life will you see, hear, or touch someone you love. These words shift continents and collapse black holes. They pause time and halt gravity.

So, I urge you to you go tell your parents you love them, and give them as many hugs as you still can. Please.

For me, if anything.

[msscaparro-blog]

29 year old orphan.

Both of my parents died this year. My father in February right before I turned 29 and my mother in August. I knew my father was dying and he was in palliative care in my home. I took care of him in his final days, listened to his death rattle, and medicated him to keep him as comfortable as possible. My mother, on the other hand, had just had some heart issues within the last few years but we just thought if we could convince her to get into the doctor sooner rather than later, she’d be fine. She was under a doctors care, so we just thought some of her medication needed to be adjusted. The morning of the day she died, we’d told her that we’d be taking her in to the doctor on Monday against her will if we had to. So I was very shocked that afternoon when she had died. 

Now both of my parents are gone and I’m honestly not sure how I'm coping. I’m depressed and I’ve been having anxiety attacks. Sometimes I’m at work and I just freak out. I was very sad when my father died and have continued to mourn, but our relationship had been incredibly strained over the last decade. I will admit that there were times when he was sick that I would be frustrated with him and thought everyone would just be better off if he was gone. I harbored so much anger with him over the way he treated my mother, the blatant lies he told me to my face and the way he felt entitled to everything. He had changed quite a bit from when I was little and a “Daddy’s Girl” and at times I felt like I’d already mourned the loss of that man. 

The loss of my mother feels like I’ve lost part of my heart. She was one of my closest friends, my first great love. The first person I loved before I’d even seen her face. She was the only grandmother my son had left and she was one of my biggest supporters. She was batshit crazy sometimes but she was an incredibly loving person. Things had been a little different ever since she went through chemo and radiation for lung cancer two years ago but we thought “Well, they flushed her body with a lot of poison...that will take a long time to get over.” So the changes that she’d gone through just wanted to make me fret over her more. 

I knew how to move on with life after my father died. I don’t know how to move on after the death of my mother. Continue with me as I try to navigate life without her. 

[theempiricist]

“I went to see my parents earlier..

Both seemingly seated on mountain top..

Both savoring an eternal breather..

For their time had come frozen to a stop.

Good and ill thoughts began to stampede in..

The is, the was and the what might have been.

It could all get extremely haunting..

Images of pain and suffering.

But these are now but senseless to dwell on..

To suck it all in is to inhale poison.

And so as with anything I just try to look at the bigger picture..

The lessons learnt and the fact that this life can never be entirely pure.

For losing mother then father brought some sort of a stripping of pride..

When in the end all that is left are but dust in boxes side-by-side.”

-All Souls Day

[pernettewellslove]

When Sparks Fly is contemporary fiction, chick-lit, but to me it was TMI. Information that was included was not necessary to the storyline and should have been left out. Enjoyed the book (without the TMI material).

[mommystrongtx]

Ana's Reason 5.

Ana’s Reason 5.

Series: Under the Surface – Ana’s 13 Reasons Why

A series of posts uncovering what is really beneath my anorexia and depression.

Reason 1: Genetic Temperament Traits

Reason 2: Inheritance

Reason 3: My parents’ marriage. And divorce. And remarriage. To each other.

Reason 4: Genes load the gun. Environment pulls the trigger.

Reason 5. Mama dies.

As coincidence might have it, today is the day for…