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The Pain of Grieving is Overwhelming.
My 81 year old father left this earth on May 13th. I have always been daddy's girl and looked after him the last 15 years. The last almost eight years my dad lived with us after the death of his second wife. He was diagnosed with end stage lung disease in December of 08. As his health declined I was his caregiver. I have been a nurse for most of my life. He did not want to go to a nursing home or a hospital. He wanted to die in my home, which after all those years became his home too. I honored his wishes. He died with me at his side and holding on to him. His last audible word was my name, said simply without pain, tears or fear. He was alert to the very end and ambulate independently until the last three days.
Caring for him and watching him die was the hardest thing I ever did. There were no words left unsaid. My dad loved me and I loved him. We knew how one another felt. He freed me from all guilt as he prepared to leave this earth. Numerous times he told him he could not have had better care nor a more wonderful daughter. He told me when he was gone that I should not grieve but to go on with my life and enjoy it. The gifts of the heart that the life lessons he left me are great and numerous....gifts that can only come from a father to a daughter.
So thanks to my dad I am not guilt ridden nor did I leave anything unsaid but my grief is overwhelming. I have not been able to open his room, the door remains closed. He died once but he dies over and over again in my mind. I relive those 53 hours when he became gravely ill and it took him to leave this world.
And though I have my wonderfully supportive husband at my side the house is empty. I wait for dad to come through a door or call my name. I look at his chair and he is not there. My life revolved around caring for my father. I went very few place and had little interaction with my friends or the outside world. Now when I am away from the house my grief is not so overwhelming but as soon as I walk through the door I am looking for my dad and the emptiness returns. I have no appetite and can barely choke down one small meal a day. My sleep is often filled with dreams where I am screaming for my husband to help me or nightmares of my father being ill.
I have read many of the other posts on this forum. Those of you that have lost children or a young parent must think that I am being selfish complaining over the loss of an 81 year old father. I apologize to you. I thought I would handle this so much better.
I have lost the only person that loved me unconditionally. My heart is broken and bleeding. Can anyone offer some suggestions or guidance that will help me through this time. I know it has not even been a week since we buried my father but the pain is still so strong.
Still Mel's Daughter,
~Tuck
Caring for him and watching him die was the hardest thing I ever did. There were no words left unsaid. My dad loved me and I loved him. We knew how one another felt. He freed me from all guilt as he prepared to leave this earth. Numerous times he told him he could not have had better care nor a more wonderful daughter. He told me when he was gone that I should not grieve but to go on with my life and enjoy it. The gifts of the heart that the life lessons he left me are great and numerous....gifts that can only come from a father to a daughter.
So thanks to my dad I am not guilt ridden nor did I leave anything unsaid but my grief is overwhelming. I have not been able to open his room, the door remains closed. He died once but he dies over and over again in my mind. I relive those 53 hours when he became gravely ill and it took him to leave this world.
And though I have my wonderfully supportive husband at my side the house is empty. I wait for dad to come through a door or call my name. I look at his chair and he is not there. My life revolved around caring for my father. I went very few place and had little interaction with my friends or the outside world. Now when I am away from the house my grief is not so overwhelming but as soon as I walk through the door I am looking for my dad and the emptiness returns. I have no appetite and can barely choke down one small meal a day. My sleep is often filled with dreams where I am screaming for my husband to help me or nightmares of my father being ill.
I have read many of the other posts on this forum. Those of you that have lost children or a young parent must think that I am being selfish complaining over the loss of an 81 year old father. I apologize to you. I thought I would handle this so much better.
I have lost the only person that loved me unconditionally. My heart is broken and bleeding. Can anyone offer some suggestions or guidance that will help me through this time. I know it has not even been a week since we buried my father but the pain is still so strong.
Still Mel's Daughter,
~Tuck
Best Answer
dear tuckamore I loss my dad when i was 7 an i just whant you to know it gets easyer over time an i will pray for you you should try grive groups so you can be near peapol that have the pain of grife. good luck :-)
Thank you all. Your words have touched my heart.
And though I am usually on the PM Forum or the Caregivers Forum I will visit this site often.
Gratefully,
~Tuck
And though I am usually on the PM Forum or the Caregivers Forum I will visit this site often.
Gratefully,
~Tuck
Talk to your doctor and see if there is anything he can give you that may help even if it's just something to help you eat a little or sleep a little. It's a difficult time right now. Don't beat yourself up for feeling this way. It's natural. Talk to somebody about how you are feeling whether it be a therapist, family member, or a friend. Sometimes just talking and crying are what you need to make some of the pain go away. I am very sorry for your loss and you will be in my thoughts and prayers.
sorry to hear that my dad passed last month and i will pray for you i am here for you
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I know that people say time heals all wounds, but in my experience it doesn't. Time does however help you develop the strength to live with the wound, and that makes all the difference. I hate it when people, in their effort to be compassionate, suggest that I'll ever get over the loss of my mother. How could I? Besides being the greatest person I've ever known, like you said about your father, she loved me unconditionally and was the only person to do so, (sadly, as much as I love my father - I don't think his love is as unconditional as I wish it was).
Those things you feel, the emptiness, the expecting to hear him call your name. Those are things that will fade... diminish. They don't ever go away... I still expect to hear my mom, but they happen less and less and soon the interval between them becomes great enough to allow you time to breathe. And you have to breathe, to keep breathing. Breathe for your father, for his love for you. You know that is what he would want for you. You were blessed to have spent time with him (as I spent with my mom). He didn't pass without hearing how you felt or telling you how he felt. That is such a gift. When things are better you will cherish that gift.
I am Jewish (although not so much a practicing one). I found great comfort in the Jewish laws regarding the loss of a loved one. I pulled down some info from a website that explains it better then I.
Judaism provides a beautiful, structured approach to mourning that involves three stages. When followed carefully, these stages guide mourners through the tragic loss and pain and gradually ease them back into the world. The loss is forever, but the psychological, emotional, and spiritual healing that takes place at every stage is necessary and healthy. The journey through the stages of mourning are like being in a cocoon. At first one feels numb and not perceptively alive, yet gradually one emerges as a butterfly ready again to fly.
The first seven days of mourning (called sitting Shiva) are reserved for the most intense, painful grief.
The next month or so (Shloshim) one is still in mourning but is encouraged to very gradually reenter into everyday life. It is a time to renew and come to grips with a new reality. Of course mourners still feel the pain of the loss, but Judaism recognizes that to a certain degree, the passage of time is able to ease and heal the pain. Being able to return to everyday life freely helps achieve this healing. The shiva was the worst period, the shloshim was very hard, and this stage is bad. In time, it will get better.
Of course this period is extended when it come to losing a parent.
So finally Jewish law provides for one year from the day of death for someone who losr a parent to be considered in mourning. (Throughout the year one gradually returns to a regular life).
The reason that a parental loss is considered different is that psychologically and spiritually, our connection to our parents is the essential relationship that defines who we are as people. Therefore, the loss of a parent requires a longer period of adjustment.
This period of time guides us into a deep state of gratitude for all they gave and all they did. As children, we spend most of our lives in "taking mode," and our parents, being parents, are almost constantly in "giving mode." It is hard to say thank you from a taking perspective (that is why it's hard for our children to say thank you). In a relationship where it is the most difficult to show gratitude, this period of time helps us focus on recognizing the good that our parents desperately tried to give in the best way that they could.
Parents also represent values and ideals. They are God's representatives to us in this world. They try to impart in their own way essential tools for living. This extended period of mourning recognizes that the loss of such a relationship has deep spiritual ramifications.
Finally Tuckamore, even if you are not Jewish, the following paragraphs can give great solace. I'll leave you with them and my prayers. I am here (if only virtually) for you.
The process of mourning is not easy, and the Jewish way provides a structure to let mourners feel their aloneness, separating them from the outside world and then gradually reinstating them back into society.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch writes in "Horeb" that when people are in a state of grief, they physically feel a vacuum within them. This is the most painful state, because the essential drive of every person is the drive for fullness and completion.
The different stages of mourning allow us to come to grips with the loss. Eventually we realize that the empty hole is not nearly as deep or as vast as we initially felt.
Time does heal. But not because we are busy and the memories fade. With time comes objectivity. We realize that the person we are now is the result of the loved one we lost. The elements of our character, actions and values all result from this special soul and the experience of loss.
The body, being finite, does die. Yet the soul, the essence of our loved one, is eternal. The connection between us lives on. This reality begins to slowly fill the vacuum, but not completely. We can never fully grasp the eternity of the soul. There will always be that space inside. We are human beings who are limited in our capacity to truly understand the ways of God and the afterlife.