Feeling hurt when other people fall apart over their elderly ailing parents while mine died young

[Anonymous]

Some people lost their mom when they were young children. Should you therefore not be allowed to grieve your mother’s death at age 51? After all, you had so much more time with her than they got with their mothers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It might be normal, but it's also irrational and unproductive. People are going to grieve their parents, and it's not a competition. Their grief doesn't have anything to do with yours. They love their parents and they will be sad and struggle when they die. Again, it's not a competition or a zero-sum game. They have the right to be as sad as they feel.

+1

+1

[Anonymous]

My mom died 20 years ago at 60 and I totally understand what you’re feeling. I find myself completely unsympathetic (secretly) when people lose their grandparents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom died 20 years ago at 60 and I totally understand what you’re feeling. I find myself completely unsympathetic (secretly) when people lose their grandparents.

Good lord that is callous and horrible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some people lost their mom when they were young children. Should you therefore not be allowed to grieve your mother’s death at age 51? After all, you had so much more time with her than they got with their mothers.

Right? I know two families where the mother died in her 30s or 40s. If OP wants to see it as a competition, or grief as being something you need to "earn," then by her logic, she shouldn't get to feel so sad about losing her mother at 54. But that's NOT how it works. Everyone grieves their own grief, and you don't have to earn feeling sad or struggling with losing a parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's normal for you to feel this way. It's also normal for people to worry about their 90+ year old parents. They can both be right.

I think you really should see a therapist about this. I think you haven't worked through a lot of the grief. You also need to be able to think about how you'd want your own kids to feel. Wouldn't you want them to care for you when you're elderly? You can't change a relationship you never had with your parents but you can make sure yours is strong with the family you still have.

This.

There's room for both sets of emotions. But not always in the same conversation or at the same time. And the people you process each set of emotions with may not overlap. It's ok. I do think therapy would be a really good place to say all this stuff out loud and feel validated and supported.

I am sorry you didn't get to have your parents for longer.

[Anonymous]

https://www.wendtcenter.org/

OP, I think a grief support group could really help.

The Wendt Center is excellent. If you are not in DC they may be able to steer you to options in your area.

[Anonymous]

No matter how your DH and his family grief their mother, it won't bring your parents back. This time would probably trigger complicated feelings for you about losing your own parents no matter who they were handling it.

[Anonymous]

I hear you, OP, I lost one parent in my 20s (my dad was in his 50s) and the other in my 30s (my mom was in her 60s). I still remember my mom saying, "I thought I would at least leave until I was 70." Even typing that makes me teary.

I'm fine with people being torn up about their parents ill health or death, but I hate hate hate the people who are so annoyed by parents who really aren't doing anything that seems to justify the annoyance? I'm not talking about people whose parents are abusive or uncaring, but people who complain about truly minor stuff as if their parents are the worst in the world. Or the people who complain about parents giving too many gifts to their kids (the grandkids) or wanting to attend all the grandkid events. Those people, I want to slap sometimes. I know it's not appropriate or appreciated, but you really do want to respond to that complaint with "Yeah, well, my parents are dead and I'd give anything to have to worry about whether to donate excess gifts."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some people lost their mom when they were young children. Should you therefore not be allowed to grieve your mother’s death at age 51? After all, you had so much more time with her than they got with their mothers.

Right? I know two families where the mother died in her 30s or 40s. If OP wants to see it as a competition, or grief as being something you need to "earn," then by her logic, she shouldn't get to feel so sad about losing her mother at 54. But that's NOT how it works. Everyone grieves their own grief, and you don't have to earn feeling sad or struggling with losing a parent.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some people lost their mom when they were young children. Should you therefore not be allowed to grieve your mother’s death at age 51? After all, you had so much more time with her than they got with their mothers.

Right? I know two families where the mother died in her 30s or 40s. If OP wants to see it as a competition, or grief as being something you need to "earn," then by her logic, she shouldn't get to feel so sad about losing her mother at 54. But that's NOT how it works. Everyone grieves their own grief, and you don't have to earn feeling sad or struggling with losing a parent.

Not to derail your point, but OP is 54 now. Her mom died in 1999 and her dad died in 2008.

[Anonymous]

You have an emotional wound, that opens up when other people are experiencing their lives in a normal and healthy way.

Understand that.

You should find a way to process what you have been through. Right now you are thinking what you went through is what life is like, and others don't know how great their lives are.

Everyone has a cross to bear. Losing parents young may have been yours. But that has nothing to do with how they feel seeing their parents suffer and die. They have no experience without that person in their world, and may feel truly shattered.

I agree that you should seek therapy because right now you resent them, and they are doing NOTHING but being a family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's normal for you to feel this way. It's also normal for people to worry about their 90+ year old parents. They can both be right.

I think you really should see a therapist about this. I think you haven't worked through a lot of the grief. You also need to be able to think about how you'd want your own kids to feel. Wouldn't you want them to care for you when you're elderly? You can't change a relationship you never had with your parents but you can make sure yours is strong with the family you still have.

This is OP.

DH and I don't have kids, we just have each other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's normal for you to feel this way. It's also normal for people to worry about their 90+ year old parents. They can both be right.

I think you really should see a therapist about this. I think you haven't worked through a lot of the grief. You also need to be able to think about how you'd want your own kids to feel. Wouldn't you want them to care for you when you're elderly? You can't change a relationship you never had with your parents but you can make sure yours is strong with the family you still have.

This.

There's room for both sets of emotions. But not always in the same conversation or at the same time. And the people you process each set of emotions with may not overlap. It's ok. I do think therapy would be a really good place to say all this stuff out loud and feel validated and supported.

I am sorry you didn't get to have your parents for longer.

OP here.

Thanks for your feedback.

It also makes me feel sad that my parents never got to enjoy their retirement. Mom was too young to take retirement (and had no plans to give up her job yet - at least until age 60 or so), and dad was running his own company when he got ill.
They had plans to travel in retirement.

Over the years DH and I have traveled to and stayed at some of the places my parents liked for vacations, which is a comfort to me, at least temporarily.

[Anonymous]

I think they are both hard. My grandfather died in his 50: and my grandmother lived to be over 100 so my mom dealt with both. It didn’t make it any easier to deal with my grandmothers death because she lost her beloved father (and her only sibling too) when she was still in college. But at the end of the day I think we could all appreciate how lucky we all were to have my grandmother for so long. At some point your ILs will feel that gratitude but it’s hard when you are right in the midst of dealing with it all.

[Anonymous]

Remember how hard it was for you to watch your parents decline and then to lose them? That's how hard it is for these folks to do the same.

I am so sorry for your loss, and that you lost both your parents so young. But, no, I don't think it is "normal" to begrudge your friends and loved ones their grief because you also suffered losses.